


The Milkman

by FIPindustries



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Lactation, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-06-09 18:05:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 56,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19481179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FIPindustries/pseuds/FIPindustries
Summary: In the Galatean kingdom the war has finally ended and now a tribute is paid as a peace offering. The kingdom will share it's much prized milk with the mountain nation. But it just so happens that, in the Galatean kingdom, the milk it's extracted from its very subjects.





	1. A rude awakening

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a fetish thing that i wanted to indulge on. It involves lactation, treating people like cattle, submission, slight mindbreak but above all this, it also involves and actual story, with an actual plot, characters and worldbuilding that i might or might not find the free time to finish.

MALE POPULATION TO BE CONSCRIBED INTO 

WAR REPARATION EFFORTS

This is what the newspaper, which was thrown with disdain into the cramped, wooden kitchen table, said, while the man who had thrown it added:

'Shameless, i tell you, absolutely shameless'

'Oh, it's not as bad as all that, dear'

The reply had come from a stocky woman in her late forties, and was directed to a man who looked much the same. Their resemblance was only broken by the bushy mustache the man had, with hairs dark and thick pointing almost forward, rather than down.

'This nation is quickly losing its moral fiber! i tells you! the mother queen would have never allowed such a silly idea'

'I think is great they are giving our men a way to contribute to their country in a way other than combat, patriotism without bloodshed is still patriotism, the farms have always been our biggest pride as a nation' said the woman while taking the last bits of bacon from the pan and putting them on a heap, on a plate, on the wooden table, alongside all the other necessary knick knacks for a hearty breakfast.

'Working on the farms in not a man's job, but that is not my concern here, woman, is these ridiculous war reparations, they are the work and toil of our citizens and they are not in any way serving our nation as you so say, they are going to other nations, our vital product! our life nectar! it is all being pilfered by outlanders!' it must be understood that throughout all this ranting the man would not stop putting the recently served bacon into his mouth, to then be washed down with copious gulps of white, creamy milk.

'If the Queens deemed it necessary then they know best' and that was the last of it. With these words the man sunk into his chair, a bit sullen but without saying another word.

'Father' said the young man who, until now, had been ignored 'would you please pass me the milk?'

'Here you go kid, hope you don’t get elected'

'Frank!' said the older woman, chastising 'he should be well proud if so! i did my five years in the farms when i was his age and it was a good and proper time for me'

'Thanks father' said the son to the empty cup he was currently filling, at a volume that only the cup could have heard.

The family then proceeded to consume it's daily breakfast consisting of warm milk, cereal with yogurt, bread with cheese, butter and bacon, sour cream and plenty of ripe plum slices. It was hard to believe that so much could fit in so tiny a table, but not hard at all that it could all go into the stomachs of the parents, round and rosy as they were. The son, on the other hand, was not one who occupied plenty of space. While not precisely skinny, he just wasn't as corpulent as his parents and the only thing that gave him any real volume at all was his giant mane of brown locks that puffed al around his head like a cloud of pipe smoke around a respectable elder.

'I'm done father' he said as he finished eating not half of the amount his progenitor ingested.

'Again? only that?' said the mother 'you are going to starve yourself if you keep going like this!'

'I'm fine mo-'

'Don't reply and listen to your mother!' said the father 'every day is the same with you, it is ungainly to eat so little! Look at your glass, barely half a gulp of milk is what you've taken!'

'We worry about you, dear'

'Here i am lamenting how we waste our treasure in foreigners and you won’t even take what little is left for us!'

'Do you feel right? are you stricken with malady? is it a personal issue that takes hunger away from you my son?'

This is barely a small sample of what was said that morning on that kitchen, and that morning was just one of many others similar to it. These proclamations tend to vary from day to day, with a pronounced tendency to increase in frustration. What remains the same, day after day, is the silence of the young man who is confronted with all of this, and the quiet answer that he utters at the end.

'Fine, i apologize'

Then he would force one more gulp of milk into his mouth, get up and go out the door to walk for an hour or so across the small town in which he lived before he had to go to classes. Such was the routine of Mikael.

Ten steps away from his home he spat the milk. He decided he would go to the fountain in the park, where he could wash the taste from his mouth.

Is not that he was born with an innate distaste for lactose, or that he truly hated the flavor. But in his town, in his country, dairy was a daily thing, and daily dairy had made him weary. Perhaps he was a freak, he feared, since not many other people around him seemed to be as tired of the main diet in the country as he was. But then again, in the small village in which he lived, there were not that many people around to really compare. To be one in five hundred was not so little when the country had five million. He had hopes that at the very least there were other ten thousand like him out there, and whenever he imagined himself surrounded by ten thousand people he stopped feeling so alone.

Thinking all of this, in less than two hundred steps he was by the main plaza of the town, with its fountain springing crystal clear water into the air. More than the voices of the public, more than the small steam engines of the only two auto locomotives in town, more than the bouncing to and fro of the water droplets, you could hear the dozen churners used in the plaza to make butter. And the smell. Holy heavens the smell. Feet and fungus had never quite reached the majesty, the gusto, the spectacle that the cheeses produced in that city did. Only one born and raised in such an environment could withstand it.

Amidst these surroundings, accustomed to them in the way that only a true born and raised citizen of that city would, Mikael knelled to drink from the fountain.

He was pushed into the water as soon as his lips entered in contact with it.

'Greetings, daffodil!' was the first thing he heard as soon as he got out of the water, said by a female voice. 

'Greetings Teresa' Mikael answered looking at the rambunctious girl in front of him. She was a walking contradiction in her complexion, with a buxom trunk as was custom for proper young ladies yet in the possession of quite the muscular arms in a way that was most unorthodox. Her virtues were noticeable enough that she could be regarded with appreciation from her elders and made her otherwise improper traits be considered minor details that time and maturity would polish away.

‘And whatever where you doing all sulken-like by the water fountain?’

‘Just refreshing myself’ said Mikael, trying to squeeze the water out of his clothing.

‘well, i’m up and ready for our jog to school, butterfly, on your mark…’

‘Teresa, there is no need’

‘ready…!’

‘Teresa’

‘GO!’

Before even the “g” sound came out of Teresa’s lips, Mikael was already sprinting fast as his legs could push, not even sparing a glance for his friend. Willowy and slender as he was and heavy and dense as Teresa was, he had the clear advantage.

In these daily races he was always put to mind the old fable of the hare and the wolf. The wolf proposes a game to the hare, a competition, whoever is fastest wins. If the hare wins then she gets to brag about how she is the fastest animal in the forest. On the other hand, if the wolf wins then he gets to eat the hare.

Before the wolf finished explaining the game the hare was already running, not interested in anything the wolf had to say and yet unknowingly participating in his competition all the same. Eventually, after a lot of running, the hare wins, she reaches her burrow and hides inside. The wolf, panting, screams into the burrow, frustrated, why did the hare won? How can she be so fast? The hare answered that the wolf was running so he wouldn't die of starvation in a few days. The hare was running so she didn't die at that very moment.

In a way, that was why Mikael ran so much. He had lost once already and he was not willing to lose that race ever again.

Both youngsters reached the old barn, turned school, at the outskirts of town and the race was finished.

‘Now don’t go around getting cocky mister’ said Teresa, trying to grasp for breath ‘someday i’ll get to give you another kiss and this one will last as long as it has to until you like it’

‘You’ll have to catch me first’ mumbled Mikael, not so low that his friend couldn't tell he was mumbling and so could infer what he was mumbling about.

Inside the barn the rest of the class was strung about their chairs and tables, making plentiful chatter, perhaps a bit higher, a bit louder today due to the exciting news that had come from the capital. The fifteen or so girls of the class were huddled around the three boys inquiring them about their prospects and their attitude towards their possible future conscription. Teresa pushed her way across the crowd, letting her friend behind, as she made her way to the middle of the crowd where she always felt most comfortable.

‘See i’m not going to do it’ was claiming one of the young men as Teresa made her spot in the front line. ‘I don’t care what the queens or anyone says, there is no way they can force me to work at the farms if i don’t want to’

This got mild “ooohs” and “aaahs” from the crowd. It was a cheap thrill to claim disobedience to the crowns, where dissidence and treason were the highest of crimes punished by death. But most of this audience was easily impressionable. Except for one.

‘Bah, easy words coming from someone who never had to even face the prospect until today’ said Teresa, crossing her arms ‘I’ve known i was bound to go there someday, and trust me my parents have tried to drill me that for years and yet here i am just as resolute as you’

This got even more cooing from the crowd, along a few nods since Teresa’s reputation as a trend bucker was well known by everyone.

While this was going on Mikael sat quietly on his table, ignoring and being ignored by his peers. He was much more focused on his book for the lesson of today. The current chapter talked about Pneumatics, specially focused on the construction and function of a vacuum pump. He was trying his hardest to focus carefully on each word, making every last paragraph last as long as possible, re examining the meaning and the intention of each sentence so that he wouldn’t reach the end of the chapter before the teacher arrived. This had been his compromise with the school since in the past he had the tendency to read the entire book at his home in the first week of the school year, rendering all his classes into an absolute bore from which he would routinely skip. In order to keep him away from roaming the streets when he was supposed to be at his table in the old barn, he was forbidden to read at home, and only to read at most one chapter ahead in the school itself.

By the time he was barely two sentences away from ending the final page on the subject of air pressure, and thus being tempted to keep reading once he turned the page, the bell at the top of the school rang. The teacher, a tall, wrinkly old woman, showed up and yelled a single dry “sit!” to the class making most of the teenagers sit down. The only ones who remained standing were Teresa and the other kid she was having an argument with. The discussion had become heated enough that it was threatening to come to blows, but the teacher, strolled up to the students, without hurring, without losing composure, and grabbed both by the ears, dragging each into their corresponding seat.

‘Lady Teresa, used as i am to your disrespectful attitude, i will warn you that my patience has been rendered moot and you will see yourself facing expulsion from this institute if you cross the line one more time, is it understood?’

Teresa merely grumbled in annoyance as she rubbed her ears, refusing to look directly at the teacher.

‘And mister Joshua, while this embarrassing behavior is not unexpected at all from lady Teresa it is altogether uncommon of you, do not let yourself be dragged down to her level for i will show you just as much chastising, you hear?’

‘Yes Miss Coteworth’ said the boy, sounding genuinely embarrassed. Next to Mikael, Teresa made a silent pantomime exaggerating Joshua’s contrition.

The class started proper and miss Coteworth began dictating. without skipping a beat and barely stopping for air, she droned on as she read directly from the book, expecting the students to copy her lesson word for word, essentially making them rewrite the book they had been given. Mikael considered that even without the need for a prohibition of his reading habits he would have been tempted to skip school all the same.

His friend seemed to be thinking the same thing when she gave him a nudge with her elbow and pointed toward the window next to them with a nod of her head. This was something they had done in multiple occasions before. The trick was to jump out the window before Coteworth could notice. She was willing to interrupt her droning for a few seconds in order to stop students from getting away, but she was not going to expend time and energy into chasing them back once they were already out.

Mikael shaked his head emphatically. Teresa insisted, putting more emphasis on her gestures. Mikael spared a glance toward the teacher, worried that she might have noticed. The droning continued unfettered, Coteworth had seen nothing yet. The girl started feinting, as if she was about to get up from her seat, making it clear she was going to do it whether he came along or not. He interrupted his transcription of the dictation to quickly scribble something on his piece of paper and show it to her.

_ “If they expel you for good i’ll be left alone” _

Teresa looked at it for a few seconds and, reluctantly sat back down.

The rest of the class proceeded without a hitch.

Four hours later the young people trod their way out of the old barn, their energies and thoughts a bit worn down after the mind numbing lesson. Mikael strayed from the rest of the youngsters, cutting through the underbrush instead of following the earthy road that led to the town, since that was the more direct way towards his home. Teresa followed him behind.

‘You know it’s not worth it’ she said.

‘What? This is faster than the main road and it lets me appreciate nature for a bit before going home’

‘I don’t mean this, daffodil, i mean the school, i don’t mind being expelled and you shouldn’t mind either, you’re way smarter that cunt-worth anyway, there is nothing you’ll be missing’

‘Oh that, my parents wouldn’t like it’ said Mikael, looking at the ground.

‘Well, screw them! We should get away from this place, skip town, find something better’

‘Every town is like this, the capital itself is no different, where would you run to?’

‘To the outerlands! The other kingdoms! A place where we get to be whoever we want to be! Any day now they could draft me into the farms, they could draft you as well, now! Is that what you want to do? To be put into forced labor for five years?’

‘Five years can go by quickly…’ he said with no conviction.

‘Well, forget it, that’s not for me, and it’s not for you either’

Mikael looked at the trees, trying to see beyond the thick foliage if his home was any closer. A river was singing enticingly nearby but he couldn’t see that either.

‘I get the feeling this talk is not purely hypothetical’ he said as he kept walking, his friend a little behind him trying to keep up with the roots and shrubbery standing in the way.

‘So? Are you coming then or are you too much of a pussy?’ she said as she stopped walking.

Mikael stopped as well. He hadn’t seen this conversation coming. He hadn’t considered this was a thing that he would have to decide today when he got out of bed and it seemed far too important to just resolve right here right now.

‘Do i have to answer right now?’

‘Do you even have to think about it for more than two seconds? Just say yes! Say that you will come with me!’

‘I’m… wait, no, hold on, it sounds like you actually have a plan, like a specific kind of plan already set’

‘Look, all you need to know is that if you want, we can do it, we can do it tonight as a matter of fact’

‘I…’ he couldn’t answer. Any word he said suddenly seemed to hold too much power to change his life one way or another. But silence wasn’t an option either. He needed to buy time, he needed to think things through. He needed to combine all of that into a singular course of action.

‘I’ll be honest with you Teresa, i always saw myself working at the farms one way or another, someone has to maintain the equipment, repair it, and yes, even operate it. You know i love mechanisms and i feel i could really carve a niche for myself doing that, but wait, i'm not saying no forever, listen to me’ he took a deep breath of air ‘you could go now, make your own place in this world and once i’m done with my five years of service and have saved some money i can go with you and help you with whatever you have going, what do you think?’

She just looked at him with a dark expression on her brow.

‘You’re an idiot, you know that?’

‘What?’

‘Start running’

‘Wait…’

‘New bet, this time if i catch you you have to come with me, deal?’

She started to stalk towards him, grimm determination setting on her face. He started walking backwards and then he tripped over a root.

‘Teresa, hold on, let’s just stop and talk’

‘This time i AM going to catch you’

She was barely a few steps away when he finally managed to get up and run. It was a halting sort of progress with all the branches barring his way, branches that the hardy complexion of Teresa seemed to brush aside with ease. He jumped and he skipped and he ran, batting away leafs and getting cut by thorns. His only indication of the proximity of his chaser was the muffled thumping of her feet on the ground.

As he advanced through the forest he misstepped and was close to sprain an ankle. He was aware of the risks of trudging blindly in uneven ground but if he slowed down to watch his footing he would lose speed and he couldn’t allow that to happen. Yet he had an advantage. He had traveled across this path for years after school, his friend only occasionally accompanying him. He was far more familiar with the lay of the land.

Eventually he managed to push through to the back of his backyard, separated only by a fence from the wilderness. He tried to hop up the planks yet he only managed to hang from them, his stomach pressing against the top of the wood. Long and spindly as he was, his feet were having trouble finding purchase against the fence and he couldn't push himself to the other side. He felt the powerful grip of Teresa on his feet.

‘I got you!’ she yelled triumphantly.

In his panic, he kicked instinctively and managed to push himself off the grip of the girl and to the other side. He fell, face first, into the ground of the yard, and then without looking back he just kept on running and got inside his kitchen. It wasn't until he recovered his breath that he stopped to think about the fact that he had just kicked his best friend, possibly on the face.

Before he got the opportunity of turning around to see if Teresa was fine, a voice called him from the living room.

‘Mikael, is that you?’ his mother asked ‘please come to the living room, there is someone here who needs to see you’

He did as requested with a hesitant step. In the room were both his parents, sitting on the couch, both a bit flustered. Standing in the middle of the place was a tall woman, draped in fine elaborate garments, with a cape flowing across her back and into the floor. She stood proud and regal, with golden metal plates accentuating chest and shoulders. An official guard, come all the way from the capital.

‘Are you Mikael Bloomsbury?’ she said turning her head towards him while keeping the rest of her body motionless. It was hard to tell if she was being haughty in her speech or that was just her natural accent.

‘Y-yes…?’

‘I am here in the name of our Queens to inform you that you have been selected amongst your population to work in the farms of out kingdom, as per recent mandate, so that we may increase our national production and thus pay our due reparations to our neighboring countries’

She extended a perfectly straight arm in a clear arc towards him, holding a rolled parchment for him to read. He grabbed it and unrolled it. Before looking at the contents he spared a glance towards his parents. His mother seemed to be looking at the ground in deference, while his father couldn’t stop staring daggers at the knight, yet incapable of saying anything.

The paper said basically the same thing the officer had just explained, with perhaps more pomp and circumstance, yet at the very end there was a section which caused a bit of confusion.

‘Um...excuse me, lady… officer?’

‘Yes?’ the woman asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘I… I'm sorry but there seems to be an error here, it says that i am to be part of the farms in the production section? Not manteinment or operation?’

‘There has been no mistake’

‘But…’ Mikael couldn’t help noticing that his father’s face was slowly turning red. ‘i cannot do anything there, that… well… that is a woman’s job’

The lifted eyebrow went down. The knight started to turn around, ready to leave.

‘You have your instructions, present yourself to the farm tomorrow or you will be taken there’

‘W-wait! Hold on!’ it was far from his character to contest authority but this situation was far too absurd, far too surreal, this had to be a joke. ‘I can’t do this! I don’t…! I can’t produce, please wait, listen to me’

The door had been opened. The woman turned her head one more time, looking at him from above her shoulder. There was nothing but scolding discipline both in her eyes and her voice when she said:

‘You listen, you will obey the mandate of your queens, you will present yourself tomorrow to the farm as ordered, you will sit yourself in your harvesting booth and you will be milked like all other women and men your age who has been drafted into the farms of our most glorious kingdom, good day sir’

And then she left, her long cape trailing behind her.


	2. A denigrating position

‘Report from last night, knight?’ said the bureaucrat, a smirk at his own pun, not even attempted to be concealed.

The plated armor was heavy, but to rest sitting down on the wooden chairs of that poorly lit office would imply some sort of camaraderie with the man in front of her. He made her uncomfortable and he was going to be made aware of this, within the limits of propriety and protocol.

‘There were about ten runaway attempts yesterday night, I caught them all’

‘Good, good, we wouldn’t want the inauguration day of the queens latest… experiment to be ruined by absenteeism’ the man seemed to be idly examining some of the papers on his desk, where those official documents or lists of other pretentious words to be using in order to impress simpletons? ‘Truly dishonorable for these young men to reject their duty, to think that their mothers and sisters have been dutifully complying for generations, such rebellion is most unseemly’

‘There were women amongst the people I captured’ the knight pointed this out, if anything, just to contradict him. 

‘Were they now?’

‘One’ she corrected ‘a girl named Teresa, she had in fact organized an entire squad to sneak away through the woods, a surprisingly well organized operation, for such short notice, makes me think she had been preparing way beforehand, just in case’

‘Which speaks of a disturbing unrest in the younger generations’

She just nodded, switching her weight from one leg to the other.

‘Are we quite done here? I need to go back to the battlefront with my squadron’

‘Yes, about that’ the man stood up, grabbing a parchment with him ‘there has been a change of plans’

She didn’t stood straighter or tensed up in any way. She knew her duties and this paper pusher had not authority nor capacity to keep her away from them.

‘It seems it befalls on me the duty to go to the capital to inform them of the final tally in the region, and someone has to stay here to take care of the operations in the farm on my stead’

Now there was a slight tension in her muscles, particularly the ones surrounding her eyes. She resisted the temptation to see the parchment this office rat was waving around. It could be an official mandate signed by the queens themselves. As long as she could claim ignorance of any legal orders being submited she could get away with her whims, and thus far no order had been issued.

She turned away, her heel performing a perfect axial rotation and started to walk out of the office.

‘Were do you think you’re going?’

Words, only that, impotent questions, no commands from any superior here.

‘ _ That door is not allowed to be opened _ ’ now those were not only words. More things other than air were vibrating now in that enclosed space. 

When she pushed against the wood, the door didn't budge, even though after she had entered the room, about ten minutes ago, no key had been placed on the lock that no longer was there. There was no escape.

She allowed herself to inhale one lung full of air, her armor clanking against itself, as a concession of defeat. This was it then and now she had a new future to face, and she would do so with her dignity intact. The knight turned around one more time, fixing her view somewhere around the man’s upper lip. She would face him but she would not  _ see _ him. She would especially not see the light in his eyes that could, just as well, be sunlight being reflected and nothing else.

‘This is an order from the queens themselves’ he said placing the signed parchment in front of her eyes now ‘that commands you to stay on this town, you thought that after a single night of capture then the rebels would be dissuaded? You and your forces are needed in these positions now and until the spirit of the youth has been finally molded’

_ But once that is done you will never return from whatever cushy position you’ll manage to elbow your way through in the capital _ , she thought. Those words would achieve nothing, so instead she said:

‘And what of the war?’

‘The war is over, in case you haven’t noticed, thanks to the efforts of the youth we have recruited, reparations and all that, my knight, you should learn a bit more about politics, it makes jobs like yours obsolete’

One did not struck a baby for embarrassing themselves by shitting their pants or puking, and so she would not struck this one either. But explaining would also be useless. She could talk to this man about splinter cells, about pockets of resistance, about loss of communication and breaks in the chain of command leaving stray forces, refusing to surrender and willing to fight and kill well after all treaties had been signed. She could go on about patrolling frontiers, about the management of refugees and crowd control, about how putting everything back together in a battleground after the battle had happened was an entire war unto itself. She could say all this and she wouldn’t even get the satisfaction of giving him a headache.

So she simply grabbed the parchment.

‘I accept my new duty then’

‘Very well then’ he said, rubbing his hands, the glow in his eyes was gone ‘ i’ll just be taking my…’

‘leave this instant’ she said walking towards the desk, turning her back to him.

‘Excuse me…?’

‘Is this not my office now?’ she said as she sat down on her new desk.

‘Well, yes but…’

‘Then you are dismissed, i must catch up with a lot of paperwork and i don't want civilians fussing about, out’

For a second it seemed he was about to say some rebuttal but he thought about it twice and left the place in silence.

Once she was alone in the room she grabbed the pertinent papers and accommodated them across the desk as it suited her best to manage them in an efficient and orderly way. Everything else she threw to the trash. 

One thing army life had given her was the ability to take her lumps. To win, against anything or anyone, was impossible, since death was something that awaited all. To live was just a war of attrition. To struggle and to try and rise above one’s station was far less efficient than to accommodate and adapt. This small town clerk thought he had what it took to survive in the court of the capital? To the intrigues of the Galatean halls and the anointed palace? To the machinations of the three sister monarchs themselves?

Six months from now, once all rebellion had been quenched, she would go back to the capital, where there would be no trace of that pitiful man, and she would be sent back to her squadron. And she would resume her glorious purpose.

***

The room was cold, which was making his nipples stand out on his bare chest, making the whole situation all the more embarrassing. It made it look like his body was getting ready for what was coming.

‘Here are your results, Mr. Mikael’ said the doctor, dressed in a single white long coat, entering the room, his boots clicking on the polished tiles that covered the floor and walls. The boy closed his eyes, as if shutting them hard enough could also shut his ears, sparing him of listening to the doctor’s sentence.

‘Your weight is below ideal conditions’

His eyes opened, was that a ray of hope?

‘But still within acceptable parameters, you will be prescribed a specialized diet to increase your mass, beyond that you don't have any infectious diseases nor any abuse of substances in your history nor any heart or respiratory conditions, you are perfectly fit to work in the farms lad’

Could he, would he dare to object? There was a clear point of failure here, so obvious in fact that doubtless it had been addressed and to raise it up would be pointless yet still, what if? What if this was all a huge misunderstanding and just by pointing out what everyone else had somehow failed to notice he could be saved from a grim prospect?

‘S-so…’ he began to stammer, as much for the cold as for the shame ‘there is n-nothing wrong? I am...uh… capable of performing my… as-ssingned duties at the, um, farm?’

The physician gave a mischievous smile which made his reddened cheeks be encircled by the round corners of his giant mustache.

‘Of course you are, my boy, the kingdom knows what it does, now get ready for your shift and remember once it’s over to come back here to grab your prescription which will include your diet and your exercise regime’

‘Exercise?’

‘As I said, the kingdom knows, now go, that I still have many other patients to check and you are going to be late for your first day’

With a gentle slap on the rear Mikael was pushed out of the room and into a waiting hall where a line of other young people were waiting. It was by and large composed of women, none of whom looked any less nervous that the one or two men waiting alongside them. One face was the exception, brooding and darkened, in more ways than one. It was Teresa, sporting a bruise in her left eye and a swollen cheek. She refused to make eye contact with Mikael.

He dared not address her and just kept on walking.

The halls were covered in wood with fine furniture decorating them, frilly fabrics decorating the furniture, elegant vases decorating the fabric and glamorous flowers decorating the vases. It didn't look at all like his mental conception of a farm, it was all very glamorous, elaborate and frustratingly useless. No signs or directions indicating him were to go now. He held his documents of identification, plus a couple of papers that were given to him at the entrance as if they were a talisman that could indicate the way out.

There was a temptation in him to simply find an exit and leave the place altogether but even if he had the gumption to act on it, he wouldn’t be able to find such an exit.

Eventually an employee walked by him and noticed his panicked gaze, stopping in her tracks. Without any prompt from him she took his papers, gave them a quick smiling glance and escorted him many stairs downwards, gently grabbing him by the shoulders all the way.

‘It’s your first day?’ she asked, behind him.

‘Yes’ his voice was fading off his throat, every step he took gave him direction but also made what was to come closer and closer.

‘Well, don’t worry, chances are you will underperform, everyone does it on their first day but your new batch more than anyone’ she made a small chuckle to herself ‘still you will see how in no time you will be producing, you will be proud of your work here by the time you’re done, trust me’

He didn’t nod, he didn’t make any sound, he was being led down an extremely long hallway towards a set of double doors and the sound of heavy machinery was intensifying as he approached them. Was he actively pushing against the lady now? Her hands seemed to grip him a bit harder and her chest was pressing against his back, indicating she was leaning a lot of her weight against him.

They reached the doors.

‘Ok, here is where i leave you’ said the woman. Despite her forceful handling her cheerful disposition remained ‘administrators are not allowed to enter the production plant for fear of contamination, once you go there a trainer will explain how to put on your uniform, you will have to wash yourself before that, good luck!’

She patted him gently, like the doctor, this time on the face and left him alone. Now he knew exactly where to go and what to do and all that kept him from doing it was himself.

What would he accomplish by running away? To disappoint his parents further? To end up with a face like Teresa’s? To be sent back here eventually, this time labeled as a rebel and possibly a criminal?

With a profound sigh he pushed through the doors.

From that point on he went on to a series of showers where an old and thick framed lady explained him how to clean up properly without bothering to look away from him as he did it. Then on to put on his uniform, with no hesitation of getting her hands involved in the process if he failed to properly adjust his boots or his high waisted leather pants. The fabric was baggy, holding on to his body by a belt surrounding his ribs, a few centimeters below his armpits. A fishnet was put on top of his head and two elbow length gloves, with inordinate amounts of padding on the palms, went on his arms. By the end of the ordeal he was being practically manhandled by the trainer, who was hurrying him due to incoming recruits waiting for their turn.

Finally he was put into another line beneath the final door. Exhaustion had pushed fear and shame out of his mind. Whatever this place had in store for him, he just wanted to get to it and get this whole thing over with. By this point the rumbling of the heavy machinery was making his bones shake.

‘Very well!’ Said an employee who had just arrived through the final doors, giving a tantalizing view of the main working grounds behind her. She was using the same uniform as the small group of 20 new employees yet she carried it with a complete different grace. Where everyone else looked badly wrapped in a leather bag, her buxom figure was perfectly fitted to her clothing. She looked matronly, her heavy set bosom overflowing out of the uniform and hanging way below her belt.

‘Welcome my dear girls, and also boys now, to the doting farms of our kingdom, know you well that your work here will nurture a nation and for this you will be loved and rewarded!’ as she said this she extended her soft and flabby arms, only to then join her hands at the end.

‘I am Loretta Bolanote, but you can call me Lotta! I hope you feel like you are part of a family here, and produce just as eagerly and lovingly as if you were doing it for your own children! Rest assured you will be made comfortable, this work is not taxing at all, quite the contrary, I believe is one of the most fulfilling experiences a citizen of this kingdom could experience’ was she even looking at them? Her smile seemed to be pushing her eyes shut.

‘Now, you were all given your position, the recollection booths are all placed in an alphanumeric grid so it should be easy to find your own, if there is any doubt you can always ask your handlers, who will be patrolling the aisles periodically to make sure you are taken care of, any questions?’

Nobody said anything.

‘Very well! Now, this might seem silly but it is tradition for mama Lotta to give each and every one of her new chickens a big hug before sending them to the hen house, now come here girls, and boys!’

No one gave that first step forward, so Lotta had to grab one by the arm to wrap them in her flesh and everyone followed suit as if they were tied by a rope. Mikael was the last one and after being enveloped by the body of of Loretta he finally entered the production plant.

Out of everything he had seen in the building this was the closest thing to a proper farm. It was a giant barn. Wooden walls with booths made of metal rails and an earthen floor. Dozens of tubes coming out of the booths, connecting into one giant metal tube which led to a tank, as tall as the building itself. The tank was surrounded by pumps and pistons and Mikael’s feet instinctively started in that direction but a firm hand in his chest stopped him.

A tall lady, sporting overalls, gloves and a mean look held him by the arm. Without saying a word she turned him around, read the letters on his back and yelled.

‘B5!’ she then started to push him on his lower back, almost making him trip, leading him to his station. On every booth there was a woman, laying on their hands and knees (which explained the heavy padding on his gloves and kneepads) with tubes coming out of their breasts, gently pulsating as they extracted their product. Thought the noise made by the machines was considerable, it didn't stop conversations between coworkers, who chatted casually as if they were gossiping on the line for the market. Some were laying on their elbows, knitting or reading a book, others seemed to have gotten themselves a small stool to lay and take a nap.

‘This is your station’ said the handler. Another push, this time he fell on his knees down to a soft cushion which covered the floor of his booth. It had no proper walls, only the metal railing separating him from the other women at his sides.

‘Put yourself in position’ said the handler giving him a small push with one of her legs as she walked besides him into the booth.

‘Barbara, there is not need to be so rough’ said one of the women next to him being milked.

‘Hi i’m Loana’ said another of the workers, a brunette whose face was lost on a sea of curls ‘i apologize for Barb here, the years have rotted away her manners’

Mikael could only see the pattern of the cushions in the ground as he tried to crawl into position on his booth.

‘Oh my godess you look so pale, your arms are shaking boy!’ said the woman right in front of him, blond, tall and with a long face ‘are you going to be sick?’

‘They wouldn’t have let him get in if he was, is just the nerves, right, my boy?’ said the brunette at his left.

‘I just hope he doesn't barf on my face’ said the blond girl, pushing her hair away from her eyes. Mikael could see how her entire body rocked back and forth with the vacuum push of the tubes.

The handler Barbara pulled the tubes from the roof of his booth with one hand and with her other hand forced him to stand up straight on his knees.

‘Dear me, he looks so flat, are you sure he should be here?’ said the blond one. At this point he was so overwhelmed by what was happening around him that he couldn't event muster the strength to hold a desperate hope at the commentary.

‘Don’t pull the tubes off’ said the handler with her brusque voice ‘don’t step on the tubes, they can only be removed by a handler, if you need to go to the bathroom call for a handler and they will take care of it, you are allowed no more than three bathroom breaks per shift, say yes if you understand this’

Mikael couldn't open his mouth out of fear of actually barfing as the woman in front of him had said.

‘Say yes if you understand this!’ repeated the handler, louder.

‘Just nod with your head kid’ said Loana. He did.

The two tubes were pressed against his nipples. The suction began.


	3. A hard labor

The suction continued.

It was a pulsating pressure, strong enough to push his entire rib cage forwards. It pinched with greed to find purchase in his meager chest. The tubes where heavy and rigid, made out of some kind of rubber, so heavy in fact that he understood why the people here were required to stand on fours. It was definitely for some perverse psychological method of submission, so that they understood they were no better than animals and to act accordingly. But also it was because if they stood straight then the hoses would turn downwards, either disconnecting from their chest or pulling their skin apart.

Nothing was coming out of him, of course. Except perhaps the bile that was running up his throat and the cold sweat pouring out of his pores. And also his tears.

‘So what is your name, kid?’ said one of the ladies next to him, he didn’t know who, busy as he was trying to lose himself on the wet spots his tears were leaving in the cushion below him.

‘Mikael’ he mumbled.

‘That is a lovely name, Sara is the one in front of you and Olena is on the right’

‘You are the kid from the bloomsbury couple, are you not? Surprising that you look as thin as you do, considering’

‘Oh don’t you pay mind to that’ said Sara ‘both my parents have hair black as coal and yet here I am with my golden drapes’ 

‘Oh yes, your totally natural and absolutely genuine hair that you were definitely born with, sure’

‘Shush you’

The noise of the machinery made it hard to distinguish certain words, with their shifting and pumping to the rhythm of the pump in his chest. He wondered if the beat was calibrated to that of a calm human heart, so as to force the subjects to relax.

‘You know, me and the girls were talking about this for the last few days and I must say I’m surprised, I was convinced things were going to be way different with boys now working in the farm, we thought it was going to be awkward or something’

‘Perhaps we were just lucky and we got a quiet one, thank the goddess, can you imagine if we ended up with some immature teen who wouldn’t stop ogling us? I would have submitted a complaint and i you know i would’

The chatter was only more noise that he was barely registering.

‘I’m sure he’s just shy, i remember my first day here, dear, I couldn't stop blushing, i mean, i had seen ladies breast feeding and what not, of course, but never so many all in a row, but don’t worry boy, you’ll get used to it, trust me that after a while you will think nothing of it’

‘Yeah, this is just another job, like any other, with its good sides and its bad sides’

A pat in one shoulder came out of nowhere and he flinched.

‘Oh, poor thing, he is not handling this at all is he?’

‘Well, he better get used to it, he still has five more years of it’

The pinching was starting to hurt and his constant shaking was making it worse. Mucus was starting to run down his nose.

‘Here’ an arm came into his field of view, carrying a handkerchief ‘clean up your face, we are supposed to have grooming standards here’

He did what he could to wipe his eyes and blow his nose as strong as possible. Then he gave the kerchief back. The woman put it inside a box in her booth, next to a bunch of candles, mirrors and other riff raffs similar to those in other booths.

‘Thank you’ he said, his voice a bit constipated.

‘Think nothing of it, drink some water’

He started to look around, confused as to how to proceed.

‘There, look, see that small tube, hanging on the rail in front of you? It has a small button, put your mouth there, press it and suck, we are not allowed to stand up to drink water but working here really dehydrates you fast, so this was the compromise the girls upstairs came up with, don’t drink too much though or you’ll have to pee’

He did as instructed. Once he started drinking he discovered he couldn’t stop. He could feel the water refreshing his neck, cleaning up the huge knot that had formed on it and settling his stomach with its weight. He didn’t stop until he was full. He felt a lot better after that, like a kid after a tantrum that had tired himself, making his emotions quiet down.

‘What happens if you need to go to the bathroom more than three times?’ he asked, finally deigning to look at Loana on the face.

‘They give you a diaper, frankly is best to just go to the bathroom before starting your shift and during the lunch break, also, don’t turn your neck like that to see me, keep your head down and turn’

‘Classic rookie mistake’ said Sara ‘you will have a huge crick in the neck like that, first thing tomorrow before coming here make sure to get a shoulder pillow’

‘A shoulder pillow?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, is like a special pillow that wraps around your neck, you’ll need it here’

‘What else will I need?’

‘Protection pads for your brassiere, uhm, well you don’t have one, yet, but once you do you’ll have to put sponges on the inside, once you start really producing you’ll be liable to stain your clothes’

‘Also a good cream to treat the rashes on your chest, the rubber on these suckers can be abrasive, especially if you happen to be allergic to it’

‘Um, i hope i can afford all that’

‘Oh kid! Don’t worry about that, chances are they will give you that stuff on the infirmary after today, and besides, the pay here is good, trust me, once you get used to buy your own stuff you’ll be begging to not being let out once your five year period ends’

‘I doubt it’

Another pat in the back, this time he didn’t flinch.

After a few minutes of this he wondered:

‘Where is Teresa?’

‘Who is that, Mikael?’

‘Is that a girlfriend?’Asked Sara ‘because i will let you know relationships are strictly forbidden amongst coworkers’

‘No’ he clarified ‘ it’s… she’s...nah… she is not my girlfriend, she is just my friend’

‘Usually they don’t put the new recruits together, upstairs decided that is best for them to mingle with the veterans so they can learn the ropes and don’t become too insulated’

‘Oh’

‘Don’t worry, you will see her at the lunch break’

‘When is that?’

‘In about two hours’

‘Two hours!?’ he had raised his voice more than he intended. Many of the girls and handlers around turned their heads. Then they went back to their business shaking them in disapproval.

‘Yes, that is the typical shift, you better toughen up boy, upstairs doesn’t look with kind eyes to disgruntled employees’

‘What else could they do to me?’ he mumbled to himself, intending merely to grumble but this was heard by Sara who snapped her fingers in front of him making him raise his gaze towards her.

‘Hey! Count yourself lucky, it can get worse and it will get worse if you don’t change your attitude’

‘How?’

‘You think all they do with us here is milking? And what if a girl proves to be unproductive?’

‘Sara, maybe you shouldn’t be telling the kid this in his first day…’ said Loana.

‘Tell me what?’ Mikael was twisting his head to try and see both women at the same time.

‘What is the most efficient way to get a woman to produce milk? Im sure your mom told you about this’

‘But…’ horrible, horrible realizations were coming together in his mind ‘no, i mean, they couldn’t do that to me couldn’t they?’

‘Couldn’t they? Kid, men have worked in the farms since forever and not just maintaining the machines’

‘Don’t pay attention to Sara, Mikael, she wishes this was the case since she hasn’t had a partner in years’

‘Piss of Olena, one thing i don't need is a man’

‘I never said that it was a man’s touch what you missed’

At this Sara had a full body blush and turned her face away, refusing to proceed the conversation any further. And with this the rest of the shift went rather quietly which was a pity. Mikael had many thoughts that he would have appreciated to be distracted from.

Once the shift ended the handlers disconnected the workers one by one. The ladies stretched their limbs and massaged their aching joints, mostly quiet. The machines were stopped and everyone was trying to soak in the precious moments of silence after two hours of noise.

With everyone standing up and no tubes covering body parts Mikael was trying his best to keep his eyes on the ground, following the crowd across the building to the dining hall by the movements of their feet. This was a consideration now because previously nervousness and distress had made it difficult for his flesh to respond to the stimuli around. But now, with the displeasure of the experience dampened, his hormones were starting to take notice, which would make this day all the more mortifying.

With feet of lead he made his way to the serving booth where he was given a tray with absurd amounts of varied food. In here he dared raise his eyes since the kitchen workers had a way different uniform than he did. Yet as soon as he turned around his view was not averted fast enough and saw tables after tables of the other workers, some who had taken off the straps holding their high pants to breathe, others drying persistent leaks that remained after their shift was over. In all this one particular face called to him and there he went trying his best to ignore everyone else.

‘Hello Teresa’

She was sitting in a faraway corner of a long table, largely unoccupied, leaving her food unattended and throwing anxious stares in seemingly random directions. She gave a small jump when she noticed him and this seemed to anger her further so she turned her head away from him and instead focused her murderous gaze on the food that she was not eating.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, apparently to her tray.

‘I wanted to apologize’

‘Oh so you come crawling back to me then? Now you see how bad it really is, now you realize that it’s going to be five shitty years of this crap and now you have second thoughts about being such a compliant, passive little bitch?’

Her arms were crossed protecting the sore spots that the suction cups had left.

‘I mean, partially because of that, yes’ He conceded ‘partly because of what I did to your face’

‘What?’ her sheer confusion seemed to make her forget that she was mad at him and she looked him in the face ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Y-your bruise, when i kicked you yesterday…’

‘Oh pfff, that’ she waved her arms dismissing his concerns and changing her posture ‘don’t be ridiculous, I barely felt the feather brush of your feet against my face, no, this was made by someone else you moron’

‘By whom?’ he asked as he sat down beside her.

‘By that haughty cunt over there’ Teresa pointed in the direction she had been throwing shifty looks at, a heavily armored woman, standing on a catwalk above the dining hall, watching over the workers.

‘That is the guard that recruited me!’ said Mikael.

‘Yes, she arrested me and a bunch of others yesterday night, I gather she is in charge of this whole operation, probably just another mindless drone of the queens, a mechanic yes-gal, an obsequious puppet incapable of any real independent thought... ’ with every new epithet the sneer on Teresa’s face seemed to get deeper and deeper.

‘Just like you Mikael, and don’t think you can just come groveling to me to get you out’

‘I wasn’t expecting that’

‘Because it won’t be that easy!’ she continued ‘You will have to work hard to make it up to me, you’ll have to beg and plead and maybe, only maybe, i will be so gracious as to include you in my escape plan’

‘Wait, you have an escape plan?’

‘Oh Mikael’ she said putting a hand in his shoulder ‘you really think i would give up just that easy?’

A moment of silence stretched between the two of them.

‘Dammit’ said Teresa ‘it would have been so cool if right at that moment th-’

An explosion, strong enough to shake the entire facility, interrupted her. Those who were standing fell to the ground and those sitting stood up alarmed. Screams inundated the hall. Above them the knight was hanging by an arm on the catwalk.

‘Teresa?’ his friend had stood up amidst the chaos, giving him a vulpine grin.

‘You follow?’ she asked.

Without waiting for a reply she started running away towards the kitchens.

People were running to and fro, sounds of metal straining were mingling with screams of “fire” in the background. No one was paying attention to anyone else. Mikael unconsciously rubbed his sore nipples, red and swollen after two hours of abuse.

He decided that yes, he will follow.

He started running towards the kitchen as well.

***

A four meter drop was below her. Maybe she would get lucky and fall on top of a worker, reducing her injuries at most to a broken limb. But then that would be one less unit of production, more time till her cuota was met and more time away from her squadron. The situation was unacceptable.

With one arm she unstrapped the heavier elements of her armor. She had been stupid in refusing to change it earlier, allowing her concerns for image and impact to overrun her practicality. She carefully aimed the metal plates so they wouldn’t fall on anyone, hard task considering everyone was running like headless chickens. Once relieved of her weight she swung back and forth until she had enough momentum to throw herself back on the catwalk.

She was back on her feet. After quickly assessing the situation she took a deep breath and yelled at the top of her lungs.

‘SILENCE’

Almost everyone stopped where they were and looked up.

‘This room is as of this moment safe, you will, calmly and orderly, form a single line and exit this hall through the nearest emergency exit!’

‘THERE IS A FIRE NEAR THE TANKS IN-’ yelled someone. She took a knife and, barely sparing a side glance, threw the knife so that it would stab the ground, about ten centimeters away from the intruder’s feet. Now everyone was utterly still and quiet.

‘As I was saying, the situation is fully under control, you will form a single line and leave this place orderly lest you put yourselves and each other in danger while i go and solve this predicament’

With that said she turned around, unclasping her cape that was trailing behind her. If the reports of fire were true she wasn’t going to need that.

This was obviously the work of rebels, as opposed to an attack from the mountain kingdom, too far away from the frontier for that option. As such, its aim was at causing a distraction to grant someone the opportunity to escape. How she ached to chase the bastards down herself but first she had to check that whatever damage had been caused was properly handled by the workers. She doubted that her antecessor had invested a lot of time in training these people for emergencies. In the few hours she had been here she had confirmed that the first aid kits were woefully understocked, many of the emergency exits were not properly cleared and there were no weapons available in case of an attack, which was a thing not at all unreasonable to expect in her worldview.

After powerwalking across multiple halls she reached the storage where the milk tanks where kept. It was at ground floor, one of the wooden walls had been demolished and was currently on fire. The cause of the demolition was a broken automobile, also on fire, lodged against one of the tanks, which was leaking.

The male workers were carrying pails of water, trying to put out the fire. At least in this she saw some competency. But things had room for improvement even here.

‘Form two lines to carry the water!’ she commanded ‘One for the wall the other for the vehicle! Cover your faces on wet cloth to resist the smoke! Everyone idle help evacuate the building’

The response was swift enough that she felt comfortable leaving them to their own and starting her hunt for the culprits. Her lead were the people she had seen running towards the kitchen when she had yelled at everyone to stop. The kitchen had an exit on the northern side of the farm, so she exited the building through a window and started running east. This attack had been coordinated amongst multiple people, those within the factory who wanted to escape and one accomplice to run the car. Probably someone who didnt work at the farm and so would try to integrate to the small town while everyone else ran away. A possible vector of interrogation if she happened to fail at capturing the runaways, which she wouldn’t. She ran across the forest to the river, the second fastest way to leave town. The fastest way, hoping on a carriage in the middle of the night on the main road, had already been attempted yesterday night, and since this was doubtlessly caused by the same rebels, they wouldn’t attempt the same thing twice. 

She reached the top of a cliff, below of which was a water current running placidly from the north, eastward. She waited.

Whoever these people were, after this they would be in big trouble. She couldn’t allow this to turn into a game of cat and mouse, where these fiends tried a new scheme and she frustrated their plans only to let them try it again next week. Punishment was to be exemplary and dissuasive. So much so that no one would dare disobey again. If it was one of the women the breeding grounds would suffice, but now if it was a man… well, she would have to get creative. Lucky the powers of the queens allowed imaginations to run wild with possibilities. 

Upstream voices came her way.

‘I SAID LET ME GO!’ yelled a boy in the distance, his voice distorted by the echoes on the cliffside.

‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?’ answered some girl.

The rebels were having a fight, it seemed. Indistinct noise of limbs striking against each other resonated in the river. A small raft came around the corner into view and the knight saw a boy with a haircloud around his face, struggling to keep a girl much larger than him underwater. The guard jumped down the cliff into the dark water and started to swim against the current towards the raft.

By the time she reached the rebel all she saw was the boy, looking at her with guilt and regret in his eyes. She dived back into the river but the waters were so brown and murky that she was unable to see anything around. The stream was strong and soon the raft was going to be beyond her reach if she insisted on searching for a dead body. She jumped back into the boat, soaking wet, standing tall over the boy that was now cowering below her.

‘I’m- I’m sorry!’ cried the boy, with tears in his eyes ‘i didn’t mean to kill her! But she wouldn’t let me go!’

‘Why did she brought you with her?’ she asked as she grabbed him by the straps of his oversized pants.

‘I-i-i-’ he whimpered ‘i don’t know, i think she was in love with me or something! I swear I didn't want this! I’m sorry!’

She was good at getting the measure of a man, and this one in particular was pathetic through and through. Even if he had come here intentionally he harbored no makings of a true rebel. The scare here would be enough to keep him in check. An example would have to be made out of him all the same, for the sake of the other workers.

‘Who was that girl you just killed?’

‘S-she was Teresa, she was a friend of mine!’

She recognized that name, the leader of the escape attempt yesterday. If she was truly dead then that would also dissuade further attempts. There would be others, sure, but they wouldn’t get as daring as this.

‘Very well, boy’ she said, grabbing him by the back of his neck ‘let’s get back to the farm’


	4. A growth spurt

Mikael was not sure what hurt more, if his pride after another two hours of being suctioned in all fours, his hopes and dreams, after a failed attempt of escape, or his back after the five lashes that the guard had administered in front of everyone. A slight sentence considering he had supposedly killed a co-worker but he suspected the Administrator was well aware he hadn't actually done so. No body had been recovered from the river.  


‘And how was your first day then, my boy?’ Asked the mustachoid doctor with it’s cheerful demeanor.

The question from the practitioner couldn’t be anything but ironic given that he was the one bandaging his back after the punishment. Still, there was care and delicacy put into the mending of his wounds.

‘It couldn't be that hard! It’s just five hours a day and now you can go back home! I can only thank the goddess that I was not fit to be elected, kid, i don’t figure i would have done my job as bad as you did on your first day, but it would have been close’ The old man left his wounds and walked to a cupboard where he rifled through the many flasks contained therein ‘now i would suggest that you sleep on your side for the next few days and make sure to come back here every day so that i can change your bandages’

He walked back carrying a jar filled with a thick, creamy, red substance.

‘Now you take this home and make sure to drink two spoonfuls with every meal, shake it well before that’

‘Will it heal me faster?’ Mikael asked, looking at the ground. It wasn’t really like he cared but any bit of good news would have been appreciated at that point.

‘Oh no! I’d rather not let magic tamper with my job, no boy, this is the formula we use on every one of our workers to boost their production, it will have to be double dose for you boys, also, here…’ the doctor said, while scribbling some notes on a piece of paper ‘...are the massaging exercises that you should do every night before going to sleep and after waking up’ The writing was absolutely intelligible.

Mikael just stood there, looking at the spots of ink, incapable of moving by his own volition or deciding what to do next.

‘Uhm, kid, can your hurry? I have other people to attend…’

Mikael didn’t move.

Perhaps the doctor saw something in the eyes of that poor lost soul that told him he was at the edge of a road with no return. He took a few steps closer without daring to actually lay his hands on the boy.

‘Kid, listen, look at me’

Mikael slowly turned his gaze.

‘I have been working here for almost 25 years now, I have seen a lot of things, you know, many a poor girl came in through those doors convinced that their world had ended and not just because of working here… there are many devils hidden in this small town and the intimate nature of my job makes it so that I have to deal with the more severe consequences of those devils, some of those girls, bless their souls, couldn’t make it, and yet others, people who had suffered beyond what you could imagine, managed to somehow pull through, human nature is unpredictable and we never know what hidden reserves of strength we keep deep inside ourselves’

The words were sinking into the kid and if they made any impression it was not something that could be noticed outwardly. But these things rarely worked instantaneously, what mattered was the he heard those words so that they would be on his mind in the coming days, that he ruminated on them alone at night, that they surfaced unexpectedly on a moment of weakness.

‘You will pull through this and in five years, you will see yourself a grown and free man’ Mikael leaned a bit, supporting his shoulder against the white coat of the doctor. Now the man did surrounded him in a hug.

After this, rubbing tears away, Mikael walked down the hallways of the farm. He found his way to the entrance Hall but before he could cross the double doors he was interrupted by someone calling his name.

‘Mikael dear! Wait a second!’ It was the voice of Loretta, what final indignity awaited him before the day was over?

When he turned he saw her jogging towards him, her pendulous bosom flapping everywhere and flicking droplets of milk on the walls.

‘I forgot to tell you kids this morning that there is a new policy, you’re supposed to go to the liquidation office!’ The woman said, panting ‘lucky that I found you before you left!’

‘What new policy?’ he asked, resigned to whatever punishment this place had in store for him.

‘During the first month we pay daily to new employers, is meant to provide equal chance to people who have nothing so they can get on their feet once they start working here, so here you go’ she said, giving him a letter.

He opened and inside where folded pieces of cloth with a complex pattern iron-pressed into them.

‘What is this?’ asked Mikael, examining the fabric.

‘These are bank notes, officiated by the queens themselves, you take them to the bank and they give you money in exchange, is more practical than carrying coins everywhere, you see, so anyway that is your pay for the day, and we’ll be seeing you again tomorrow!’ She gave him a pat on the cheek and left him with his new riches.

The walk back home was a pleasant one. It was a warm summer evening, the sun was almost done setting for the day. After the lashes and the procedures at the infirmary he had forgotten to change back into his ordinary clothes but the air was warm and so there was no discomfort in walking around with his chest exposed, it was refreshing even. He carried his normal clothes on one arm, his earned salary into the other, and he walked on the grass on his way back home. His boots made the ground beneath crunch with rich notes that got lost betwixt the music of a thousand leaves rustling in the night.

By the time he arrived home he had reached a decision.

‘Good evening son, how was your first day at the farm?’ Asked his mother when he walked through the back door in the kitchen.

‘Son? Are those bandages in your back?’

He walked into the living room where his father rested, sitting in his armchair, smoking his pipe, much like every other night since he could remember.

‘Oh, hey boy’ the old man grumbled, not looking at him ‘So i guess you’re back from squandering our riches to the…’ he had been turning as he said this but he stopped when he saw both the concern in his wife’s face, who was following their son across the house, and the silent march from the young man who started to climb the stairs, ignoring both of them.

‘Hey boy! Don’t ignore us! We are talking to you! What are those bandages on your back? Hey! Come back here!’

Mikael said nothing. He finished climbing the stairs and then locked himself up in his room. Once the door was locked, he grabbed a leather bag and started putting all his books there, all the books that now he would get to read without anyone telling him when to stop. Then he started to put his clothes in. Not many, he could get by with just three different sets of pants and shirts for a while, he could buy others in the long run, after he had bought more books.There were a lot of books he was going to have to buy, books on biology, on hormonal balance, a couple on mechanics to satiate his curiosity, but above all else, books of magic. 

The last thing he put in the bag, cushioned amidst his clothes, was the bottle with the thick red liquid that was going to dictate his life from now on, magic. If this was to be his new trade then he was going to inform himself aplenty on it. 

The door on the room, that was no longer to be his, suffered the continuous banging from his father. Concerned wails from his mother infiltrated on the background of that percussion. He opened the door, timing it so that the fist of his father came down as he did, making the man lose his balance and fall on the floor. He walked over the crumpled mess.

‘My son, what is happening? What are you doing?’ asked his mother, desperate.

He said nothing. It had been easy to pack his belongings in a tight bundle, it was turning a bit harder to do the same with his emotions, the only reason he was succeeding was because of how spent they were after the day he had.

‘Please say something!’ the woman pleaded as he walked down the stairs.

Once he reached the door he stopped. They didn’t deserve this, he deserved his one modicum of freedom in this new life that had been thrust upon him, but they didn’t deserve this.

‘I just want to stop acting like a little kid, mother’ he said, trying his best for his voice not to break.

She looked at him, her hands resting on the banister. His father was getting up from the floor, upstairs.

‘And you think you got what it takes to handle yourself out there on your own?’ the old man asked.

‘I want to try’ Mikael said.

A moment of silence stretched across the family.

‘Very well’ his father said ‘What are you waiting for, i’m not going to stop you’

The boy opened the door.

‘Just know that you can always come back’ the mother said ‘we love you’

‘I love you too mum’

The young man stepped outside.

***

‘tis all a big interconnected system, little girl, change one variable and you affect the whole in unpredictable ways, that is basic politics’ Said the bureaucrat, very satisfied with himself.

‘Are you sure you don’t have any dry clothes in your bag?’ was Teresa’s sole answer. She had had the forethought to pack a change of clothes on the raft so that she wouldn't have to escape across the country dressed in the denigrating uniform of the farm but that had been rendered moot once her change of clothes had gotten wet.

They had been walking together across the small country road for 30 minutes, 25 of which the man had not stopped talking and, despite the sun, her clothes hadn’t dried up yet. The man was wearing a cheap coat that tried it’s best to copy the fashion on five years ago, carrying a backpack, and next to him, the young girl carried nothing but a bruise in her eye and water on her clothes. She was tracking mud on the dusty road and there was only the wilderness of the valley surrounding them for kilometers.

‘None that will fit you’ he replied absentmindedly ‘anyway, as I was saying, I believe I am one of the very few who thought to contextualize things in this way, see, many essays and books and treaties had been written about how to manage a kingdom but they all focus on the problem from the most metaphysical of angles, they philosophize, which inevitably creates the ever repeating problem of people trying to solve things through ideology, through slogans, through appeals to emotion, they propose grandstanding solutions for society, going by intuition and feeling, they blindly grope against an ecosystem, pulling levers and buttons without any real fundamental understanding of the mechanisms at play, hoping that it will return the desired outcomes’

‘Is that so?’ if there was any irony to the tone of voice in the young girl, the man didn’t catch it.

‘It is so! But the solution is obvious! At least to me it is, a good theory of politics should aim to be precise and mechanical, to break down the fundamental forces that move a nation to its most fundamental, granular variables, it should be a proper science, with mathematical rigor, much like the methods by which metalmechanics is studied, or the vacuum pump, or the newfangled combustion engines that are showing up lately’

‘And no one thought of this before, you say?’ her eyes were glued to the deep pockets in his coat. As long as she gave him reasons to believe he was being listened intently then he would be too busy monologuing to perhaps notice a small wet hand sliding there.

‘Very few people, I dare to guess, which is why I decided to leave my position as a lowly farm manager and go to the capital were my ideas will surely find fertile ground to blossom’

‘And uh…’ her hand was ready but the moment was not right yet, she had to give the man some fuel to really keep him going ‘care to share a specific, um, practical example of the… application of this theory of politics…?’

‘Well, take the milk, our governors decided to increase production, how did they do this? By augmenting the amount of workers! But see this was done in a careless way, they conscripted the male population to do so, now it is not unprecedented or inconceivable for a man to produce milk, the goddess gave us nipples after all, but it is a slow process that ultimately yields meager results, I calculated that production will barely increase by a 3,5 %, and even in the unlikely chance that somehow they fill the farms with the same amount of men as women, production would only go up by 10% and that doesn’t square at all with what has been promised to be exported in the peace treaties’

‘Even accounting for the boost that magic provides?’ damn her, she had actually gotten caught up in the subject ‘I mean, a normal woman can’t really be milked for more than fifteen minutes at a time, but we boost up that with the special formula, I’m sure they can do something similar with the men’

‘Where did you learn of this?’ asked the man, with offended tone.

‘Um, in school? This is pretty basic’

The adult stayed quiet, looking ahead the road, refusing to meet her eyes. Had this guy thought of this very same thing and somehow believed he was the first to do so? Was this an example of the “brilliant” ideas he was intending to propose in the capital?

Either because he somehow managed to read her mind or simply because he didn’t want the subject to rest, said abruptly:

‘Don’t underestimate the low hanging fruit that a bureaucracy may miss, young lady, you need to be more cynical than that’

_ I believe I’m cynical enough, thanks. _

‘An institution can get mired on it’s own paperpushing and parchment sealing, which will make it slow to adopt the simplest of changes’

‘You don’t say’

‘You have some unseemly sass for someone your age, and anyway, shouldn’t you be working at a farm or something?’ he said, abruptly turning his gaze towards her ‘you look like you just came out of school!’

_ We’ve been walking together for almost an hour now and this is the first time you think of asking me about my life,  _ She thought, while she examined a piece of parchment she was holding in front of her face. She had stopped walking a while ago and the man was quite a few paces ahead.

‘I don’t work at the farm anymore, I’m moving to the capital as well’ she said.

‘What-what are you reading?’

She raised her eyes from the paper.

‘A fascinating tally of the official production quota from the farm i used to work at, seems like an important document’

‘Where did you get that!? You…!’ The man patted his pockets quickly and then looked at her with anger distorting his face into a grimace. ‘Give me back that!’

‘Sure, but you will have to do me a favor first’

He started stalking towards her, she took a step back and stretched her arms apart, still holding the parchment, threatening to tear it apart, which made the man gasp in horror.

‘Now here is the deal, when we get to the ferry station to board the cruiser towards the capital you will tell the ticket man that i am your dear lovely daughter, that we are on a long journey to rejoin my sickly mother back at the capital and that me, being a clumsy young girl, fell on the river and misplaced my ticket’

‘What are you even talking about?’ his hand was extended towards the girl, clutching at the air.

‘You will help me board the cruiser, we don’t have to share a room, i can manage where to sleep on my own, all I’m asking is for you to lie for fifteen minutes and then you don’t have to see me ever again, I'm not taking anything away from you with this’

‘You disgusting little shit, you dare extort me? After i saved you from that river?’

‘Pffff, more like you poked my unconscious body, already lying by the riverside until i woke up’

‘Do you even know what i can do?’

His brow was furrowed enough to sink his eyes in shadows and yet there was a light with no apparent source illuminating his eyelids, from the inside. She knew what this meant well enough. 

‘ _ You are not allowed to see that scroll _ ’ and so she was blind.

It wasn’t darkness, it wasn’t obscurity, it was just an absolute lack of vision, a nothing that couldn’t be seen. A terrible feeling of nausea took over her head. Without vision she had no reference to where she was aiming. Her legs were shaking and she could hear the man approaching.

She made a titanic effort of willpower to scrounge up all the confidence she didn’t have and answered.

‘I'm sure you can pull great feats of thaumaturgy or whatever, but can you do it fast enough before i tear this in two?’

The approaching steps stopped.

‘If i don't have my vision returned to me in five seconds this paper is gone, I'm fucking warning you!’ if she yelled loud enough then probably the shake on her voice wouldn’t be noticed.

Her vision came back. She could see that the bureaucrat's hand had ceased it’s clutching tough the shine didn’t abandon the eyes entirely. The two opponents measured each other for a few seconds.

Finally the arm fell by his side.

‘Very well, child, have it your way’

_ He hasn’t given up, he just postponed his revenge for a more convenient time.  _ She was going to have to watch her back, she realized. Every second of every day this trip lasted she would have to move with eyes on the back of her neck.

‘Alright mister…’ she gave a quick look at the piece of paper ‘...Horace Langley’

The man just stood there. Capable of making her lose her sight at any moment.

‘Take me to the capital’


	5. A harsh lesson

There wasn't a lot to look at here. A big stately house made of wood and mortar with a garden that managed to compress an entire jungle in a space of a few square meters. Plenty of butter churners making their song and dance were strewn about the sidewalk. In display here was progress’ latest crime: a gravel street. None of the soft mushy grounds with tracks to follow from her days in the squadron, but streets, clueless, anonymous streets.

‘I just don’t understand who could have done this to me!’ said the old lady, owner of the of the mansion in front of them.

‘It was most assuredly not personal, lady Derringider’ said the knight who was scanning the street, perhaps in the hope that the criminal who stole the auto locomotive that crashed against the farm would just show up.

‘You have any idea of how much that contraption cost to me?’ continued the old lady ‘right now, of all times! that i have to surrender my intake of milk, how do the queens expect me to maintain my production of cheese with less milk?’

‘When I brought the ordinance to your company there was a brochure about using soy seed extract as a substitute for milk’ Said the guard ‘now, were you the one who drove your vehicle?’

‘Bah! I have no idea of what you may be talking about’ the business woman said, ignoring the question ‘“soy seed”, as if that could make proper zesty cheese, my family has been cheesemongers for five generations, we have balanced our formula into perfection, and now we are supposed to make do without our key ingredient!’

The guard took a deep breath, she was going to give this woman only five more minutes of her time, and that because she was chasing a rebellious conspirator.

‘I will make a wild guess and say that you didn’t drive your vehicle’

‘As if was able to handle that contraption! I really don’t know what is wrong with horses, people are in far too much of a hurry these days, when i was a lass cheese was understood to be something which took time and patience at every step of the way, from the fermentation to the delivery, now people want their product now, no matter how far away they might be, seriously how am I to conduct business if…’

‘Would you be so kind as to tell me who was in charge of driving your auto locomotive?’ Interrupted The guard, putting a hand on the lady’s shoulder as forcefully as she dared without being brusque.

‘What do i know? some young boy from around here’

So a male. That reduced possibilities.

‘When you say “around here”...’

‘Here in downtown, you think i can go hiring kids from the outskirts? With my health?’

‘I will be keeping you updated on whatever i can find’ said the guard turning around and starting to walk away. She had all that she needed here.

‘Wait! Who is going to pay for my auto locomotive?’

_ Your employees most likely, for the state sure won’t _ .

Couldn’t worry about that now, she had other businesses to attend.

The guard hopped on her horse and rode back to the farm. She would have to check back on the list of employees and reconsider her options. The vehicle hadn’t been blindly rammed against the building. It was synchronized to do so at lunch time, so that all employees were as far away from the crash site as possible. This could have only been orchestrated by someone with insider information. A male worker in the farm was responsible, someone living near the center of town, and most definitely not one of the new recruits since the whole point of the attack was to give the new people a chance to escape. It had been one of the stallions.

She reached the complex and entered through a side door that lead directly to the administrative offices. When she entered her own office she found that Loretta was already sitting in front of her desk, leaning on it, smoking a cigarette. On the one hand the guard was not sure if to be angry at the stink of the smoke or be thankful that the odor of cheese was finally being cleansed off her nose.

‘Came a little late, captain’ Said the fat woman with irony twinging her voice.

‘I am not a captain, my station in the squadron was that of lieutenant, and here is simply administrator’

‘Whatever you say captain’

How was she to get anything done in this place?

‘Now, we need to talk’ went on Loretta, scratching the back of her neck ‘see i don’t like the approach you are taking with the girls here, the increase in hours of production, in formula dosage, in… discipline, it’s causing some rabble down at the farm’

The guard took out her cape and helmet and hung them in a rack, then she sat down on her chair and started examining papers, as if she was just ignoring the other woman.

‘We have learned this lesson in the past, captain’ went on Lotta, unaffected by her superior’s rudeness ‘people are not machines, is not a matter of pushing them just a bit harder to squeeze the last bits of milk out of them, you will end up losing workers like this’

‘I can handle rebels’ was the curt answer form the guard.

‘I’m not talking about rebellion cap! Im talking about stress, milk production is a very delicate matter, there is an emotional component here, we are getting more than just milk, if it was just that we would be using animals like our ancestors used to do’

‘What are you talking about?’ said the armored woman, rubbing the bridge of her nose in frustration ‘Emotional component? I was sent here to increase milk production, for godess sake’

‘Oh dear, have you been able to catch up with the full breadth of our operation here?’

‘As a matter of fact i have been busy, keeping rebels down, so no, I couldn't read all the minutia about whatever it is you do here, I was under the impression it was simple enough, suction the milk out of the employees, package it, distribute a percent for local consumption and send the rest back to the capital’

‘Well, that explains quite a lot, you basically know nothing at all’ after this the woman pulled a long drag of her cigarette, before finishing it and flicking the butt towards a nearby trash bin.

‘If I was sent here, then my expertise must have been deemed sufficient by the queens’

‘Girl you know piss and shit, good thing Lotta is here to teach you a thing or two’ The fat woman stood up, stretching her arms and walked around the desk towards her superior. She stood in front of the administrator, hand on her wide hips, chest jutting forwards.

‘Now drink’

‘Excuse me?’ The dark wide areola was barely a few centimeters from her face. Personal space wasn’t something very precious in the battlefield and so she cherished what she could get. Someone else’s body being this close to her was putting her in the mindset of combat.

‘What, are you shy? Is nothing you haven’t drink before, drink’

That much was true, besides the fact that most mothers breastfeed until their kids reached well past ten years of age, it was a standard practice that field medics on the army would administer succor in this way if fighting conditions deemed it necessary.

Still, to just share each other’s bosom like this was unorthodox. The administrator gave a glance upwards towards her employee, she better had a point to make with this. She opened her lips and started sucking.

The flavor was familiar enough, coming on a rather strong stream, quickly filling her mouth. She drank it and before she knew it her mouth was filled again. Loretta started gently stroking the back of her head. The idea had been to not go beyond two or three mouthfuls but she found that she couldn’t stop. When the liquid settled inside of her it filled more than just her stomach. Her contact with Lotta, with that gorgeous, beautiful, sacred woman, was a caress that she had been missing. Suddenly she remembered, as if this had been a truth undeniable once but now repressed, how much it hurt to be an adult. She remembered that she was not an adult, that she had never been, her body had grown as well as her responsibilities but this hadn’t brought any wisdom nor strength. She had played and laughed as a child long ago, but just because she had stopped doing it didn’t mean she didn’t need it any longer. The more she drank, the more she buried her face on that perfect, soft, tender flesh, and the more this ache was mended. Now she was being taken care of, by the irreplaceable goddess that was currently feeding her. The glorious, titanic mother, the eternal, resplandescent, undeniable-

‘Administrator’ said a young secretary, walking through the door of the office, carrying a stack of papers ‘there is a new set of guidelines brought from the capit- oh mother queen! I’m, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt’

‘Is alright, Stella sweety!’ said Loretta with her cheerful squeak of a voice and her hand still mussing the administrator’s hair ‘just leave those documents in the desk, thank you very much’

The armored woman saw that her arms were wrapped around Loretta, she was sitting on the edge of her chair, and the only thing keeping her from falling off was her embrace of the folds of the woman. The secretary left them alone.

‘Had enough now, cap?’ asked the fat lady, going back to her ironic demeanor.

The woman in armor pushed herself back and sat up straight in her chair. One of her hands was wiping the creamy liquid off a corner of her mouth.

‘What...’ she had to stop a small burp forcing its way up her throat ‘... was that?’ 

Her voice was shaking a bit.

‘That is what we actually do here’ answered Lotta, sitting back down with her legs stretched and her arms crossed ‘you thought we would give away something as valuable as our milk to the mountain kingdom just because of the honor of our leaders? Come on, you fought in this war, you know our queens better than that’ 

‘I… I heard of milk being infused with healing properties but this…’

‘Oh this is something else, is it not?’ a sly smile was making its way into Loretta’s face ‘What you just tasted was a concentrated sample, the more you train yourself to produce this, the stronger it’s properties get, which is why we put the five year limitant, the formula produced by veterans like me is just too potent, it would leave our population too brainwashed, incapable of thinking for themselves, it’s a fine balance’

‘This is what we have been drinking all along? This…? Godess mine, we are all being controlled like this?’

‘Not controlled, incentivized, is not like the queens can order someone to kill their baby and they will just obey, they’re not monsters’

The administrator stood up, scandalized. Many of her papers fell to the ground, including the folder that the secretary had just brought. Loretta reached into the floor to pick it up.

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I trust you, you are not going to do anything about it’

‘How can you be so sure, you don’t know me!’

‘But i know that you have been drinking this milk your entire life, as i did when i found out’

The knight thought about this for a second. She knew the truth now, did it make a difference? She still cared about her kingdom, about her people, about her squad. Her loyalty to this nation might be artificial but her bond to others was genuine, her friendships and relationships had come from her and so her desire to protect them had no conflict with this new information. She sat back down. She had a lot to think about.

‘Can you give me the folder, please? I still have a lot of work to do’ She took the stack of papers and started perusing them. They were, as the secretary said, an important communication from the capital.

‘Well’ Said Loretta standing up and walking out of the office ‘just keep in mind what I said about the workers, cap, there is only so much they can be pushed to make’

The knight didn’t hear any of this, busy as she was being shocked into silence by what she was reading. The current production recount hadn’t reached the capital yet, but an official projection of the expected increase on output had been sent all the same. There were general guidelines with timetables along multiple variables.

Apparently they were expecting the production of milk to double by the next year, which was a tall request, even with the formula. There was also a demand to reduce manual labor by the next three years with the use of automated mechanisms. But the one thing that made her stop was one of the last elements on the list at the bottom. The official memo read as thus:

_ “As per ordinance 1-az it is deemed necessary the increase of the breeding rates by 50%, in order to meet this quota the recently acquired male population will be put to use, as both the donor and recipient, as instructed in section e-35” _

Indeed, this place was meant to produce more than just milk.

***

Magic made no sense and Mikael hated it for it.

The temptation to throw the book he was reading to the other side of his room was great, but his respect for books in general, as well as his concern for upsetting the other guests at the hostel he was living in, was greater. Instead he put the book down calmly, pushed aside all the other volumes strewn around on his bed and buried his head in a pillow so he could scream to his heart’s content. A week had passed and he was no closer to understanding magic. The general gist he had managed to pry away from extemporaneous bits of mysticism and religious piety was that magic came from the goddess as its primary source. There didn’t seem to be any specific methodology by which one might get magic from Her in a reliable way, only vague allusions about worthiness. Even then there was no real specification about what made someone worthy in the eyes of the divine, no set of guidelines or code of conduct by which to live so that you could curry her favor. The goddess acted by her own divine whim as far a Mikael could tell. Either that or she just choose people at random to grant them powers over reality.

What was worse, there was a weird gap in what magic could and couldn’t do. At times it seemed that all it could do was bolster natural phenomena, like increasing health or rate of milk production or strength. Other times it seemed to be able to completely rewrite reality. And there was no rhyme or reason to what could do what when.

Perhaps the cause for his frustration was that his small town just didn’t have much advanced literature on the subject, in which case what where his options? It wasn’t like he could take a trip to a bigger city to buy better books. Mikael considered other sources of information as he massaged his pectorals in a circular motion, as the doctor had recommended. While he did this he glanced at the flask with the red liquid he had been given a week ago. Some granular deposits had formed at the bottom, and it looked clearer at the top. The flask was now half way empty, he was going through it fast. The taste had been surprisingly sour, like licking coins or the smell given by rusty metal. He was wondering how much longer it would take before it had any effect on him. It was sure taking it’s time considering it was supposed to be a magical potion.

Then he realized, there was an alternative to books. The people who handled the distribution of the formula back at the farm would surely know a thing or two about magic, after all it was their job to handle its practical applications. He would have to find out how available was that information to common workers. He wouldn't want to be caught asking inappropriate questions, especially by the “captain” as they called the administrator that had whipped him in his first day. Though his wounds were mostly healed by now, leaving only annoying scabs criss crossing his back, the impression that had caused on him was still fresh enough.

He stopped massaging one of his pecs to touch his back, to check if he could pull those scabs off already. He felt something wet there, had he touched too much and now was bleeding again? When he checked his fingers he saw that there was a white substance on them. Godess, he hoped that wasn’t pus. It seemed too clear and liquid to be that. Then he realized.

He looked down to his chest.

With one trembling hand he grabbed one of his nipples and gently squeezed. A lone drop of milk came out and ran all the way down to his bellybutton. He was lactating.

His heart started pushing violently against his sternum so that his whole ribcage seemed to reverberate. Air suddenly seemed a lot more dense to push into his lungs, he was going to faint. He stood up.

Another squeeze, this time on his other nipple, another solitary drop of milk. This was real. He could produce milk. He could produce milk for other people to drink. The state was able to suction a creamy white liquid out of his chest and make other people ingest it into their bodies. This was actually happening. He was going to be sick.

A knock came from the door. He quickly dried himself up and threw a shirt on top, before the other person entered. It was a guy, tall, handsome and muscular, with a shining smile. 

‘Hey daffodil, you ready to go to work?’

‘Just a sec, Harold, let me pack my things’

‘Sure, I’ll be waiting down at the entrance’

Harold lived on the room next to Mikael, one of the main reasons he didn’t like making too much noise. The guy didn’t seem to be the kind that would ever get angry, or upset at anything or anyone, ever. And it was precisely because of that that Mikael tried his constant best to keep him happy. The poor kid figured, with his luck, it would be a misstep of his the one that would finally break that aura of complacency.

Once he got ready they both walked out together and towards the farm.

‘Have you been thinking of my proposal?’ asked Harold as they traversed the cobblestone streets down the gentle shade of the trees ‘we should rent a house now, while you still have the constant income, otherwise it might take you longer to save enough once they start paying you on a monthly basis’

‘Actually I have’ said Mikael ‘and… you are a fine fellow Harold but i don’t know, i never saw myself sharing my home with, um, practically a stranger’

‘Oh come on! There is nothing weird in two bachelors sharing a roof, especially at this time of our lives that we can still be single, i mean, sure in a few years, once i saved up enough, I’ll build myself a true eggnest where i can take care of a lady, but for now this is just a stepping stone! Or are you telling me you actually like sleeping on those hay beds?’

No he didn’t like to sleep on beds filled with hay at all.

‘Give me one more week to think about it, please?’ Mikael said, more out of habit rather than for any real hope that the man may listen. Yet surprisingly the subject was dropped. That was one of the many reasons why they had become friends so quickly, Harold was the first person he had ever known to truly respect his boundaries.

‘By the way, Harold, would you happen to know who i could ask down at the farm about, um, the formula?’

‘The formula? Why? Is it having any side effects buddy?’

‘No, not at all, quite the contrary in fact…’ the young man realized what he was about to confess and lost his voice in a reddened face.

‘So it IS working then, what, have you started producing already?’

Mikael covered half of his face with one hand as he nodded at the ground.

‘Congratulations man!’ Harold gave him a hard pat on the back which almost drop him into the grass.

‘Is not that much… just… you know… barely a couple of drops…’ He was pulling on his mane of hair out of sheer embarrassment.

‘That is how it starts, let me tell you something, working at the farms as a stallion, i always wondered myself how it would be to be on production, you know, surrounded by naked ladies’ Harold winked while nudging his friend with an elbow.

‘Is not what you think, is noisy and your arms get tired and it smells like sweat and old milk’

‘Still one wonders, but i guess i’m just too good at managing the vacuum pumps to be reassigned, pity’

‘Oh man, I originally wanted your job’

‘Well that just goes to show the twists and turns of life, old pal’

‘We met a week ago’

‘And it already feels like ages’

They had reached the front doors of the farm so, with one final wink, Harold left Mikael and kept on walking to go to the back section of the building where the heavy machinery was kept. Mikael went on through the entrance hall and into the many hallways. By now he was familiar with the lay of the land. Instead of going to the showers to prepare for his shift, he went on to the administrative section. He had someone in mind he wanted to see.

He knocked on a door and a voice from the inside told him to come in.

When he walked in he found Loretta, laying on a long divan, squeezing her breast milk into a jar by hand. His first instinct was to avert his eyes, but a week of working in this place had desensitized him enough that he could resist the impulse.

‘Oh don’t mind me darling!’ said the woman with her usual high pitched tone ‘i may not be working on the main plant anymore but these girls are still producing so i have to relieve them every now and then.

Mikael forgot for a second what had brought him here. He was busy thinking that this might be his situation eventually. But those were questions for later. As of right now he had something more important to worry about.

‘I had a couple of doubts about the uh, the formula’

‘Do you now?’ Lotta asked, getting up and putting the jar down on a small table next to her ‘You know it’s perfectly safe, we would never give anything harmful to our dear girls, and boys’

‘No, i know that, of course, i was just wondering if there was, um… well any books or information about how they work? I know it’s magic but i want to know what specific kinds of magic, how was magic applied to the process, that sort of thing’

Loretta looked at him with her smile seemingly frozen.

‘Now why would you be asking about something like that?’ she finally asked, grabbing the jar back up again.

‘Well, just… general curiosity? I figured it might help me do my job better?’

‘You think you are not doing your job well? Because let me tell you, you are doing great, and I’m really proud of you for it!’

‘No, no is not that, I know im doing fine, i just started producing today in fact and…’

‘You have? Let me see!’ The fat woman walked over to him with a hand outstretched. He instinctively walked a step backwards.

‘Oh come now, you should be used to this by now!’ she gave one final step and pinched one of his nipples letting a drop collect on her thumb, which she licked clean.

She passed her tongue across her lips for a few seconds.

‘Yes, there is potential in you, smooth and sweet, a bit too watery still but that should change soon enough! Good job!’

‘Th-thanks’ he said. It was the strangest feeling in the world being told to feel proud of something that seemed to be utterly out of his control.

‘Now that I tasted yours is only fair that you taste mine! Would you like?’ she offered the jar, practically pressing it against his lips.

‘N-no, thank you’ he said. One of the few blissful freedoms that his new job had given him was to cut down his intake of dairy, which he took advantage of fully.

‘No thank you? You don’t like milk boy?’

‘I-is not that i don’t like it, is just that i… uh…’ he had this argument thousands of times before at his own home and it was putting him out of sorts to have to re hash it one more time here ‘I don’t like to drink it all the time

‘Just one sip! I’ll feel really offended if you don’t’

Had she simply said ‘please’ chances were he would have caved in, but to be pressured by such obviously emotionally manipulative tactiques rubbed him the wrong way and only emboldened his refusal.

‘I have to go’ he said, pushing the jar away with one hand ‘my shift is about to start’

Again Loretta just looked at him with that frozen smile. Those were the times he wondered if she was even a real person or some strange golem crafted by the queens to serve at the farms. Was such a thing even possible? It didn’t look like he was going to find that out here.

‘Of course, dear’ she finally said. He turned around and opened the door.

‘Do remember to come here after your shift, sweety, i might have some books about what you been asking’

‘Uh, sure’ he wasn’t going to come back ever, if at all possible. It hadn’t been an order and if she asked he could simply claim he had forgotten. The captain had whipped him but he would much rather deal with her than with Loretta again.

‘Bye honey, have a good day at work!’

‘bye’


	6. A fiendish rendezvous

The landscape went by at a regular pace, and from her vantage point, about seven meters off the ground, Teresa was speechless. She had heard of cruisers in the past but never really stopped to think how awe inspiring a view they would be. The wooden ship traversed across the land as a ship on water. Its hull was sliding through a giant ditch on the ground, grinding against the occasional stone. The vessel was taller than it was wide and a good 20 meters long. It looked like a big blade carving the fields, though it was a blade with no handle and no hand to push it.

She was looking through what would be the stern on a water vehicle, trying to discern a helix or other kind of engine that may be propelling the thing but the angle was not good enough. On the inside she hadn’t had much luck either since the engine room was sealed off to passengers, though she was not so much a passenger as a stowaway.

Her first few days had been the hardest, trying to learn the patrol schedules for the guards, finding tiny nooks and crannies where to hide each night, and keeping well away from Horace Langley, the bureaucrat, lest he decided to enact his vengeance upon her right then and there. Luckly the food was freely given as part of the ticket so all she had to do was show up at the kitchens at the scheduled times to get a bowl of chowder two times a day.

Once she found an empty space on the cargo section, in between the milk tanks being transported as the tribute to the capital, things went a lot easier for her. By the third day she had stolen an officer’s uniform and that helped her sneak around all the more easily. To get access to other sections of the ship, the passenger’s cabins, for instance, where she could steal even more clothes and other tiny riff raffs, usually taking only one item per passenger so that people would think they just lost it rather than being burgled. 

She was pretty well set all things considered, it was only four more days before arriving to the capitol. Once there she would go to the commercial port and sneak into one of the boats much like she had done here, or even get a legitimate job at one of the boats, why not? It didn’t matter, all that mattered was that she was going to be away from this kingdom, away from it’s farms, away from it’s stupid traditions, away from it’s milk and most important of all, away from Mikeal. Who had let himself get caught pretending to drown her so she could escape.

Then things got complicated on the fourth day.

It happened during one of her scoutings of the lower sections in the cruiser, trying to find what was the engine that pushed the whole thing. She walked midst the shadows and the cobwebs, dressed like a crew member, looking for a hatchet or trapdoor. She heard whispering and stood still. It was a voice, droning to itself, mumbling something about fabrics and heat. The fact that the mumbling continued told her that whoever was down there with her in the darkness hadn’t noticed her yet. So she had the upper hand in this situation.

It couldn’t be a member of the ship’s crew. Why would they be here mumbling instead of working with the lights on? So it had to be another passenger. Teresa hoped it wasn’t the Bureaucrat. The most sensible thing would have been to just walk away and leave this weirdo by themselves. But then again, Teresa was not really a sensible girl. She kept dragging her feet forwards, trying her best to stay silent. The lights were hitting her back, covering her face in shadows. As she turned around a metal beam she saw a back, some leather jacket stretched against it. The person appeared to be hunched and his shoulders indicated a lot of activity being done with their arms.

She heard intently to what this person was saying.

‘...too fucking slow, damn it, and of course i have to be the one stuck all the way here, thanks so much guys, these accursed clothes couldn’t be any more scratchier, is like they are done with leaves, where did a put that wig now…?’

It sounded like nonsense. The guy was probably insane and that made him non threatening to Teresa. She decided to just interrupt the man and see what he was on about.

‘Sir?’ she asked.

The man turned. She could see a skeletal man, with thick lenses on his eyes, and a scared look on his face. He was wearing multiple layers of clothing, topped by a kilometrical scarf surrounding his neck. He looked at her for barely a second before turning away and starting to collect what looked like other bits of clothing, wigs and fake mustaches into a satchel.

‘I-i’m sorry!’ said the man with a surprisingly young voice ‘i was just curious to see the structure of this ship, I didn’t want to inconvenience, I will be leaving the premises’

She realized he had seen her “uniform” and mistook her for a worker. Oh the opportunity was too hilarious not to take full advantage of.

‘Stop right there’ she said, mocking up her best version of an authoritative voice ‘I see that you are carrying disguises, care to explain what are those for?’

‘Oh, these?’ said the man, still not turning around ‘I work as a circus clown! These are just my costumes you see, i was preparing an act’

‘Down here, all by yourself?’ she was giddy with the thrills of interrogating this guy. She finally understood why authority figures acted the way they did, this was too much fun.

‘Yes’ a small pause ‘see, and here is the reason why’

A smoke cloud suddenly exploded between both of them, making her jump backwards. The sting of the smoke made her close her eyes and she felt a bump on her left arm. The guy was trying to sneak away! Now that was unacceptable. She turned around and waved her arms, managing to grab a piece of clothing. 

When she opened her eyes she saw another member of the crew. A tall man, with his chest thrust forwards and his arms crossed, he was looking at her with an angry expression.

‘Now what are you doing here wasting your time!? The deck is in terrible need of a good scrubbing, lass! Now go up there and do your work before I tell the captain of this!’

The man was being lit from the back, which covered his face in darkness. Still, she was not an idiot.

‘There are only two men in the crew of this ship’ she said ‘one is fat as a pig and spends most of his time in the kitchen smoking with the cook, the other is an old man more bent by age than a willow twig, pick your disguises better next time’

The man stood there, without breaking his pose.

‘What? You’re not gonna say anyth-?’ before she could finish, the man thrust a backhanded slap her way. She took it but didn’t let go of the man’s clothes, instead grabbing another piece with her other hand. Her prisoner started contorting to slide out of his uniform but she jumped forwards to tackle him into the ground.

Once there she found that grappling with this person was like trying to hold on to a fish. They would twist and turn in unexpected ways, slipping in and out of her arms. The only reason she was managing to keep him close was because her iron grip kept still whatever she managed to grab, until the man forced her to twist as well making her let go.

Eventually the man ended on top, putting his full weight to keep her steady. His breathing was agitated and he was trying to catch his breath, panting with his face a few inches away from hers. For a moment she worried this guy might think of taking advantage of her in some fashion. Well, in that case it was better to prevent. She kicked the groin of the person on top of her. There was a grunt, but not enough of a surrender or expression of pain to indicate she had hit something important.

‘I’m sure you’re just doing your job’ the guy said ‘but trust me, it isn’t worth it, i could have killed you six times already, just let me go and forget you saw me’

‘Is not even my fucking job!’ she snarled, frustrated ‘i just wanted to know what you were doing, there was no need to overreact like that!’

‘Wait, is not…?’ the man left her go and standing up looked over her one more time ‘Oh, oh i see, so it is that the trickster has been tricked, now i see those clothes are not yours, not quite your fit and not quite your frame’ the man started accommodating his uniform that had fallen into disarray due to the fight.

He was the same guy from before the smoke bomb, except not. He had the same skeletal frame, except now it seemed fibrous rather than emaciated. He had the same hair except now it was parted a different way and so it changed the entire silhouette of his head. It was the same body except now held in such a way as to suggest a completely different temperament.

‘Who are you and how did you change your clothes so fast?’ she asked.

‘Ah, is that not always the question? How do wonders happen in this world and who is responsible for them?’ he gave a quick turnaround and somehow his uniform seemed to unfold into the leather jacket he had been using before the fight began ‘the name that i used to buy my ticket here is Marztilanderius Volpernickerberg, as to the how, why by magic of course’

‘Oh, holy shit, you’re a magician?’ now that sounded useful.

‘Not quite, as I already said, I’m but a humble clown, and I presume you are a fellow stowaway, miss…?’

‘Teresa, just Teresa’ she said, crossing her arms and walking around the guy giving him a once over ‘now i ask you something, why didn’t you flinch?’

‘What do you mean?’ he said, turning around so as to keep facing her as she turned.

‘When i kicked you, you didn’t seem to be bothered yet you don’t seem to use protection’

‘Yes, and?’

‘Well, I'm just wondering if you are not still disguised “sir”’

The man pulled his glasses from within some pocket in his jacket and put them on his face while smiling.

‘You are perceptive, but a good magician never reveals all his secrets’

‘Can you at least tell me what you are doing down here?’

‘Why don’t you start doing that and then i might decide to trust you’

‘I ran away from home because I didn’t want to work at the farm, now you tell me’

‘Well, the most majestic of circuses that I used to work for has been regretfully disbanded, and I find myself down on my luck, without even a single coin to pay for a modest journey to richer pastures but still all the same…’

‘No, try again’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That is clearly bullshit, lie better or tell me the truth’

‘How about I don't tell you anything and we both mind our own business? I don’t figure it would be constructive to meddle with each other’s affairs as it would lead to mutually assured destruction’

‘Seems fine by me’

And so both left the place without looking at each other.

***

On the fifth day of her journey she came across the man again at the ship’s bar. This time impersonating some eccentric industrialist amidst a gaggle of first class passengers, amongst which was the dreaded Horace Langley. Teresa took the chance to see the man, dressed in a rather fancy white tuxedo, display his charms to the crowd around him.

‘...but really’ he was saying ‘I see nothing but good in these new policies, my business is, if anything, positively booming with the new exportation opportunities to the mountain kingdom, and this is a “hill” that i’m willing to die on!’

What the crowd did then was not quite laughter but rather a contained series of hiccups and snorts signifying merriment. The only one without joy in his face was Langley, who seemed to be watching the man’s tuxedo with envy.

‘Oh for sure, our queens can do no wrong!’ agreed a fancy lady drinking her liquor in dry sips ‘the mother queen knew what she was doing when she left them to ascend into godhood’

‘Well…’ interjected Horace, dragging the word until he was sure everyone had shut up and looked at him ‘I wouldn’t be so bold as to say “no wrong”’

‘Oh hush, Horace’ said another woman, trying her best to aim her monocle in front of her eye, despite her inebriation ‘pedantic technicalities are so boorish, anyone can see flaw with a magnifying glass but the larger strokes of our monarchy have been nothing if not masterful!’

‘Now, my dear’ said the pretender in the tuxedo ‘that unanimous agreement doesn’t do for an engaging conversation, let’s hear what horace has to say’

‘Why thank you, Voly-uh Volpe-Volpe…’

‘Volpernickerberg’ clarified Martzilanderius.

‘Yes, see, I am in charge of tallying many important statistics in the economy of this country and i have found some concerning results’ The bureaucrat took a long sip from his glass, enjoying the attention ‘for example: this very cruiser is carrying the collected milk from about seven towns all across the nation and taking them to the capital, but then once in the capital is just redistributed back to the cities, now that cannot possibly be efficient’

‘But is that not done so as to equalize the distribution?’ commented another of the ladies ‘Many cities end up with a surplus of milk, whereas others are terribly lacking on it’

‘Yes, yes i know’ added Horace, annoyed ‘but what i mean is that there must be a quicker way to redistribute the surplus from one city to another without it having to go to the capital first, The new auto locomotives for example’

‘Ah yes those!’ commented Martzilanderius ‘quite a fancy piece of work, and no magic needed to operate them, i tell you their metal requirements have been a blessing for my industry, but what do I see?’

The man had turned to look at Teresa in the distance and started to motion her with his arm to join the conversation.

‘If isn’t my good friend Teresa! Would you care to join us?’

She wanted to gesticulate that this was a terrible idea but now the whole crowd, including Langley, was looking at her. Everyone else joined in encouraging her to approach. She had no option but to do so. As she got closer she could see the poison in the bureaucrat’s eyes, yet she trusted that he wouldn’t dare to do anything improper surrounded by the crowd.

‘She is my second political niece, three times removed!’ claimed the man in the tuxedo, surrounding her with one arm ‘I invited her to my trip to the capital so that she could see the wider world, isn’t that right dear?’

‘Yes’ she said, tense and barely separating her lips. Even though she had her gaze lost in the horizon she could still feel Horace looking at her. She could almost sense his glass starting to form cracks by how hard he was gripping it.

‘Oh she is shy, she was raised on a small town, away from her uncle’s fancy fabrics’

Everyone laughed again and her anger was starting to overrun her fear. This idiot didn’t even know what he was doing.

‘Teresa, if you don’t mind me asking a question, at your age, shouldn’t you be working at a farm?’ Asked Horace.

‘I- well, i am…’ fuck, she wasn’t good acting under this kind of social pressure. No clever lies were coming to her mind.

‘Of course I got a pass after i petitioned a few vacation days for her’ interrupted Volpernickerberg ‘if by “petition” you understand me to say “donation”’

Everyone laughed one more time in that way where, even if there was no mockery that could direct the laughter at her, it was still not with her.

‘Really? And which town is she from?’

‘Dear could you remind me again, where it was, i just can’t keep all these tiny villages straight’

‘Cremevald’ muttered Teresa between her teeth. She would have liked to mention some other nearby place but her town was actually rather isolated from other neighboring populations and nothing else came to mind.

‘Why isn’t that funny! I come from there as well, it’s quite a small town so I should be familiar with you’ Now the man in the tuxedo started to throw nervous glances between the girl and the other man, finally realizing his mistake ‘I don't quite remember your family being related with any such industrialist as mr Volpertinger’

‘Volpernickerberg’ she corrected. Anger was giving her clarity and Horace was giving her a target ‘and I doubt you would have been aware of him considering I wasn’t aware of you at all, so I don’t reckon you occupied a valuable or noticable position there if you didn’t know of my full family’

Everyone was drinking their alcohol, hanging on every word of the conversation.

‘Teresa!’ said Volpernickerberg in mocking disapproval ‘now that was not very polite, precise as that may be, I believe you may have been drinking a bit too much dear, would you mind going back to our chambers?’ there, he was offering her a graceful exit from the stupid situation he had put her in.

‘We should talk again some day’ said Langley as she was leaving ‘catch up with the news from our tiny corner of the world’

‘I will look forward to it’ she said before going downstairs to the innards of the ship.

Later that night, Teresa tried to find sleep in her dark corner in between the containers, yet was unable to do so as her mind seemed insistent on replaying that mortifying conversation over and over. In her tossing and turning she failed to notice that the shapeshifter approached her. When she finally saw him she almost let a scream out and was only stopped by his hand on her mouth.

‘Hello Teresa’ he was out of the tuxedo and into a dark skin tight overall that made his every movement look like a silhouette. He was squatting next to her, wearing his glasses back again.

‘Let me go! What are you doing here!? And more importantly what the fuck where you doing this afternoon?’

‘I apologize’ he said, while looking towards a distant light in the room, making sure there was no one close to hear them ‘i thought to pull an innocent prank on you and I failed to realize that you might have problematic relations with other passengers in this cruiser’

‘Yeah no shit, moron! Do you realize you could have gotten me into a lot of trouble? That guy wants me dead, in case you haven’t noticed’

‘Want me to kill him?’

The honesty of the question left her speechless.

‘It would be quite easy and it would be a chance for me to procure more disguises’

She stared into his eyes trying to find any signs of madness in this man. She didn’t find any and that left her all the more scared.

‘Martz’ She said as she sat up and hugged her legs ‘who are you? Who are you really?’

‘Like I said, once again, I am but a clown, a clown who can do magic, a clown who came from a very faraway place’

‘What place?’

‘Teresa… I am from the kingdom of the dawning moon, or as your people call it, the mountain kingdom’

‘You’re a spy’

‘I wouldn’t be much of one if i said yes to that, but then again, that is what a spy would say’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Since we are already in a pact of mutually assured destruction i figured giving you a bit more arsenal wouldn’t be too much of a risk and also because… well i’ve been thinking’

‘About what?’

‘See my kingdom is creating a small cell of resistance within your capitolium and we are taking advantage of the new open borders to do this. In order not to draw suspicion we’re are just sending about one individual every two weeks to our hidden cell, and i am their latest arrival, someone who can do magic disguises, a shapeshifter, but there has been a problem’

A clang came from above them and they both went utterly still. After a few seconds of nothing happening they both concluded it wasn’t anything dangerous and proceeded talking.

‘The problem is that we are actually quite unfamiliar with your nation, we know little of your culture, your customs, we didn’t even know that your population of women was about four times larger than your men, bottom line is we need a guide, and so we thought to get in contact with the local countercultural groups, which i figure you belong to’

‘And how do you figure that?’ she asked, her defensiveness was more out of confusion and being overwhelmed rather than actual distrust.

‘You said it yourself, you escaped from your abominable farms so you probably agree with my nations assessment of how monstrously inhumane your rulers are’

‘I- well, yes actually but, oh goddess, this is just too much’

‘Just think about it, for starters if you join you can come and sleep in my cabin instead of being afraid to get captured by the cruiser’s crew every night what do you think?’

Teresa looked at the man alarmed. Was this guy suggesting what she thought he was suggesting?

‘Why don’t you give me a night to think on it and tomorrow we talk’ she sounded just like Mikael and she hated herself a little for that.

‘As you wish’ he said retreating back into the shadows ‘we’ll see each other again, lady Teresa’

***

The sixth day was a very informative one.

Both conspirators met each other in the font of the ship, the valley was moving quickly below them, the ditch through which the ship moved stretched far into the distance. Right at the line of the horizon, the silhouette of the capital was already visible.

‘I want one thing in return, if I’m to join this conspiracy of yours’ Teresa started without even saying hello.

‘And that would be, besides free housing and food?’

She looked at his self satisfied smile, he was merely jesting.

‘You’re a magician, right? Well i don’t care about learning magic, it probably takes like years and i just don’t have the patience for that, but I want to learn how to defend myself from magic, just the basic stuff, you know, so I don't feel like I am at such a disadvantage’

‘Mhmmm’ she turned to look at him again, now he wasn’t smiling any more ‘that is going to be… problematic’

‘How so?’

‘There is a gentleman’s agreement amongst practitioners to never, ever share our secrets with non-mages, for it could lead to the loss of magic for everyone everywhere, i trust you enough to invite you to my rebellion… but i don’t think i trust you enough for that’

‘Aw come on! There has to be something, anything, even the most basic tibdit could help!’

‘No, I'm sorry, but if it is that Langley the one that worries you, I already suggested a solution’

She had to really stop and consider this. She was a scoundrel, she didn’t deny that. She was rambunctious and violent and was perfectly fine with disregarding the rules. And yet she was not a murderer, no matter how much it would lift a weight from her shoulders she just wasn’t willing to kill for that.

‘Just…’ she said finally ‘just promise me that you can protect me if he does something first, i don't want you to execute him but… promise me that you will be there if he attacks’

‘I promise’ Martz said, surrounding her with his arm. 

After that they went together to his cabin.

The room was covered to the brim with different sets of suits, glasses, hats, fake beards, stuffing for bellies, and more. Many of the pieces of clothing were femmenine and Teresa wondered how good was this guy at pulling those particular disguises.

‘Apologies for the mess’ said the man as he escorted her across the piles of clothing ‘this is the only way that I know to keep them all readily available, it saves time if they are not kept away inside a drawer’

‘It’s fine’ she said ‘I don’t mind, my room was pretty much the same’

‘And why is it that i am not surprised?’

He started to push piles around in order to leave a small rectangle of the floor cleared. Then he started to put sheets and covers there, along some pieces of molded foam as an improvised pillow.

‘Now you get comfortable in my bed’ he continued ‘this on the floor is for me’

She sat down on the mattress, not entirely sure what to do next. This was a grown man, who had invited her into his room, into his bed. She assumed that he was going to ask certain favors of her, as men usually did with girls such as her, and she wasn’t even sure if she felt like rejecting him. He was handsome, and a gentleman, and interesting, and daring and… frankly she hadn’t had human contact in quite a while. A girl had needs, after all.

‘Well that should be all, excuse me, i’ll head to the porcelain room to get into more suitable clothes for sleeping’ he said as he walked to the private bathroom.

‘You don’t need to do that in the bathroom’ she said, trying to sound seductive, with no idea of how she was supposed to do that.

‘Come again?’

‘You… can get undressed right here, if you don’t mind’

He looked at her with confusion at first and then with dawning realization, then with second hand embarrassment. As she saw this then she started to realize some things as well and she considered leaping out of the room and jumping overboard so she wouldn’t have to deal with the conversation that was about to happen.

‘Teresa, i am most flattered, but…’

Where was Horace when she needed him? she would have welcomed him making her blind once again just so she wouldn’t have to look at Martz at the face.

‘...see what you are suggesting is not something, um, physically feasible’

‘Alright, no, i get it, ok, good night’ She quickly hid beneath the covers of the bed and shut her eyes. It was just a matter of waiting really. If she just kept her eyes closed and waited long enough all of this would go away and she wouldn’t be ashamed anymore, in like a hundred years or so.

She heard how the man walked across the room, moving stuff around and changing clothes. Water ran in the bathroom indicating that he was peeing. Once the lights were fully out and she heard only silence she dared to peek beyond her sheets. All she saw was the indistinct shape of her companion, expanding and shrinking with every breath.

Then two small lights came up in the darkness, his eyes, looking at her. They saw each other in silence for a few seconds, neither daring to break the silence first. Finally Martz was the first to say something.

‘I do want to make perfectly clear that you are a beautiful young woman and that there is nothing wrong with you that would make me keep my distance’

‘It’s ok’ she could have left it at that but now a part of her was curious.

‘So, martz… are you…?’ how did one asked about this? ‘Are you bent? Are you inverted?’

‘You’re asking if i like to do with men what other men like to do with women?’

‘Yes’ was her whispered answer.

‘It’s… complicated, but the short answer is yes’

‘And what is the longer answer?’

‘Well… you asked me back when we met if I was wearing a disguise, when you kicked me and i failed to react, right?’

‘Right’

‘Well then yes, beyond the fact that my real name is not Martzilanderius, and beyond the fact that I am a spy, this is not who I used to be, there is a reason why my brand of magic is shapeshifting ’

‘I don’t get it’

‘No one does, I don’t get it myself most of the time, all i know is that… I'm happiest when I am anyone but who i was born as’

She could hardly process half of what she was hearing. Between the fact that she was sleeping in a strange room, in a strange ship and that it was pretty late and her awareness was starting to drift, the day of tomorrow she would be half convinced that this conversation had only been a dream.

‘Good night Teresa’

‘Good night Martz’

***

The seventh day everything went wrong.

The capitol was a few kilometers away now, the end of the trip was near. By now no longer was wilderness what went by, but domesticated fields of wheat. The ditch below the ship was now built with cobblestones, polished flat into reflection. Both Teresa and Martz were standing next to each other at the back of the ship, and neither was talking. She was still trying to decide how she felt about the conversation yesterday night, whereas he was clearly trying to pretend such a conversation never happened.

Their silence was punctuated by the noise of people plowing the fields and the constant slide of the cruiser against the stones. They had most of their things packed by now. The man had somehow managed to compress his endless costumes inside a single satchel, Teresa was not entirely sure if this was clever efficient packaging or a perk of his mystical powers. Teresa was not sure about a lot of things regarding that “man”.

It was not unheard of for her that people could display eccentric preferences, she was the very proof of that. She had never befitted her society’s standards for femininity, yet she had never questioned her own womanhood either. It had been just a fact of life, who she was arose from what she was and vice versa. For a moment she entertained the idea that this person’s conception of self had been affected by their own magic but then she remembered that, by his own admission, he had chased that specific brand of magic precisely because of his condition.

It was all rather confusing and thus sat uncomfortable with her. But ultimately she concluded that, as of right now, it didn’t affect her at all, so she was just going to put it aside and ignore it. With that thought put to rest she turned her head at Martzilanderious and opened her mouth.

‘Attention, ladies and gentlemen!’ said Horace Langley in a clear, loud voice. The pair turned their heads and saw the man, standing in the middle of the deck, with two tall women at his sides, security guards for the ship. Other passengers, by virtue of their attention being called, were forming a loose ring around him. ‘I have a scandalous announcement to make!’

He had his hands up, like a magician showing that he had nothing up his sleeves.

‘As a fine worker in the administrative offices of our kingdom i have an affinity for the perusal of lists and documents and i thought to spend my idle time on this journey entertaining myself reading the manifesto for this ship, a mere professional curiosity you see’

People were looking at each other wondering why this man had chosen now to share with everyone how incredibly boring his hobbies were.

‘But you see after consulting the full list of passengers I came to the realization that the numbers didn’t match! How could this be? I ask’

‘There must be a st-’ began to say someone but was quickly interrupted by the man.

‘There must be a stowaway! I concluded, and so I began to keep tally of other passengers and so i reached to the one individual who was not included, and that individual is right here, with us!’

So this was it, his revenge. Teresa started sweating. There was nothing she could really do, if she tried to walk away from this situation she would just paint herself as the culprit before Horace even had the chance to do it. What would happen to her? She would probably get captured, put into prison and sent back to the farms. She had heard stories about the kind of punishments that were applied on the more rebellious member of the farm.

‘But why would someone dare infiltrate this ship into the capital i ask? Make no mistake my compatriots, the war may be over but these are still tumultuous times!’

As the bureaucrat kept warming up the crowd Teresa felt a warm air current next to her ear and a voice saying.

‘Mulctuous alley, 452’ the sounds were barely a pitch away from just being a breath.

‘What?’ she asked, confused since she didn’t want to miss what Langley was saying considering how dire it was for her.

‘That’s the address, don’t forget it, also, you wanted to know how to protect yourself from magic? Here is the secret: Do. Not. Believe It’ She felt something being pressed against her palm.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This interloper’ continued Langley ‘is no doubt a spy! Yes! A spy from the mountain kingdom, come here to destroy our nation from the inside!’

The crowd was now hanging on his every word. People were with their glasses halfway up to their mouths as if they had started drinking but got so caught up in the moment that they had forgotten about it. Horace was pointing at the sky, his finger higher and higher with every sentence.

There was definitely a kind of magic at work here, Teresa understood this on an intuitive level. A basic one, not the kind that changes the world but the one that captures something much more important. A story was very artificially being set, a narrative, spun. Tropes and cliches coming to life, conquering hearts and minds.

‘And I know precisely who this criminal is! This poisonous snake, hiding in the bush! This fiend! This monster!’ his arm slowly came down, still pointing, as if it was a cannon, an arrow, a wand. And just when the arm was about to finish it’s arc downwards, Martz started clapping, slowly.

The man made a step forward, subtly nudging Teresa the faintest of inches to the side. He had changed from the travelers clothes that he had been wearing just a few seconds ago, back into the white tuxedo of the industrialist, right before everyone turned their heads to see him.

He was giving a confident smile as he walked over to Horace without stopping his slow clap.

‘Good job, Langley, you caught me, I am the spy’

The bureaucrat’s finger started to tremble, as the hand slowly retracted backwards. A collective gasp came from the crowd. This was a delicious twist of the tale, orchestrated not by the narrator but by one of the characters themselves. Teresa, normal everyday life Teresa, would have said something to stop this idiot from sacrificing himself on her account. She had enough of that already. But this Teresa, the one whom a story was being told about, could not break the scene.

‘But…’ was all that Langley managed to say as he looked back at Teresa and his eyes bulged out of his head. He was not looking at her face but at her hands, she looked down and saw it. A ticket. That was what had been pushed into her hands.

‘Ah yes, but!’ bellowed Martz, forcing Langley to look at him again ‘But how? But why? What happened to the real Martzilanderius Volperknickerberg, if he ever even existed? Which he doesn’t, not anymore, im sorry Teresa, but I needed to take your dear uncle’s life and face in order to get here, I hope you will forgive me’

The man was turning around, giving every member of the audience a second of eye to eye contact. His voice didn’t just resonate like Horace did, it waxed and waned, it sang. He was clearly the better one at this. Every step he gave people craned their necks a fraction just to keep him in the center of their focus.

‘Well what are you waiting for?!’ yelled Horace to the guards, seeing that the situation was getting out of his hands ‘arrest him!’

‘Ah but you see, you think that you have captured a mastermind yet you haven’t, all you got…’ he said as he somersaulted into the railing of the ship, somehow leaving all his clothing behind. When he landed he was no longer wearing a tuxedo but a colorful ensemble made by a patchwork pair of pants, suspenders, an oversized bow and full on outrageous makeup with made his lips bigger, his eyes rounder and his skin paler ‘...is a clown’

Then a second somersault and fell overboard. Everyone rushed to the railing screaming. Teresa was the first to do so and was almost crushed by the oncoming crowd. It was a seven meter drop from a moving vehicle and yet there was nothing on the ground, no splotch of red or any other colors for that matter. Just the perfectly polished cobblestones of the ditch.

People didn’t seem angry at all that a supposed enemy from the state had just escaped punishment, if anything they sounded excited, sharing their impressions and remembering their previous interactions with the supposed industrialist. Soon they all dispersed leaving Teresa alone to admire the wilderness quickly running away from her.

Mulctuous alley, 452. That was her new objective.

Before she could even think a proper goodbye for the spy, a thin rope choked her neck. Two hands pushed her by the rope into the body of the bureaucrat.

‘Clever, i was just going to blame you as a spy so that they would execute you, it seems i was coincidentally right, was i not?’ muttered the man, grabbing the back of her neck with one hand, gripping the ropes.

‘Now you will walk with me casually, as if nothing’s wrong’ he said putting a hand over her face, when the hand retracted she was made blind once again ‘ _ and i will only return your eyes if you do what i say _ ’

She complied, terrified. They went downstairs, across multiple rooms until she felt they entered a particular one and he closed the door behind her. She was tied up and her blindness went away. They were in what she presumed was the man’s room. Orderly papers here and there and a couple of old fashioned coats strung about. She was tied to a chair, her arms roped to each armstand. The man was setting a full sized mirror in front of her.

‘We are bound to arrive to the capital any moment now, so i guess i won’t have much chance to enjoy myself here, but it will have to do’ he was saying ‘you know what kind of magic I specialize in? I specialize in taking things away, my dear, it took me many years but i have perfected it to almost an art, for example!’

He pointed his hand at the door of the cabin.

_ ‘That door can not be opened anymore!’ _

The doorknob was gone, there was no way to operate the door, she was trapped here with this mad man. This was a situation she could not deal with. Strong as she was physically, she was not used to been intimidated, to deal with an enemy she couldn’t surmount. Her breath was hyperventilating, her chest went up and down at high speed, she started to struggle desperately against her restraints. It didn’t help the fact that she could see herself in the reflection, pathetic, defenseless.

‘Now stay perfectly still! I’m going to be taking things from you and you are going to watch! But if you struggle too much i may have problems aiming and you may lose a lot more than intended’

He extended one finger and grabbed her nose.

_ ‘Got it’ _

When he retracted his hand she could see in the mirror that her nose was gone, instead there were two jagged holes in the middle of her face, making her look like a skeleton. She started screaming.

‘Had enough?’ the man asked.

She didn’t want this, she couldn’t accept this. This was too horrible to believe, this was not possible, this could not be happening. This...then she remembered. What had Martz said?

_ Do. Not. Believe It. _

But how could she not believe what she was looking with her own eyes?

‘I think that was enough for you to remember me’ the man said packing his stuff ‘now you will stay here quiet until i walked off this ship, once I return you your nose, then you may scream for help

_ There is a gentleman’s agreement amongst practitioners to never, ever share our secrets with non-mages, for it could lead to the loss of magic for everyone everywhere. _

Just a secret could destroy all magic, and the secret was not to believe it. This said by a clown, by a person used to wearing masks, disguises, to lie. Magic was a lie, but a clever one, one told well enough that you couldn’t see what was actually happening. She thought of an idea.

She blew a strong stream of air from her mouth up to her nose. The nose that was supposedly no longer there. The nose that felt the stream of air all the same. She couldn’t see it, that was the trick and with that the rest of the scene became clear.

She was a sucker. This, much like what had happened at the deck, had been just a scene, a tale, a silly story about a helpless little girl captured by the big evil magician. She had gotten swept into the narrative, as everyone who believed in magic did, and played her role accordingly, not noticing all the little details that gave away the trick. Such as the fact that her nose was just invisible, or that her legs were not actually tied at all.

She rocked forward and landed on her feet, her head pushing the mirror to the floor.

‘What did I warn you about!?’ yelled the man. He was trying to sound intimidating but now that the aura had been dispelled she could hear he was actually terrified of his plan failing. She turned and ran backwards, ramming the man with the legs of the chair she was tied to. He lost all the air in his lungs. Then she took a step forward and rammed him again. And then a third time. The last hit was hard enough to actually break the wooden chair. She stretched her arms, still tied to wood and grabbed her face. Her nose was there, she could touch it, she could feel it, and if it could be felt then it could be seen.

She grabbed a piece of the mirror that had broken when it fell to the ground and looked at her face. Her nose was there alright. She then looked at Langley, crumpled on the floor. The sharp piece of mirror was still in her hand and for a brief moment she considered using it.

Then the whole room shook. The ship had stopped, they had arrived to their destination. If she did anything then she would have to walk through the guards with blood stains on her hands and clothes. More trouble than it was worth. Instead she just kicked the guy, twice in the stomach and once in the head. Then she walked over to the door. The handle could not be seen but when she closed her hand around it she was able to grab it all the same. She walked out of the room and into the deck.

She was at the capitol. The station was gigantic, a single superstructure made all in cast iron. Every column and every beam decorated with molded metal. Cruisers, bigger and smaller that the one she was at, were docking in and out. She walked out into the station and saluted by the lady officers at customs, flashing her ticket like she owned the place. 

The view on the main hall was a saturation of stimuli, So many people, running in every direction, noise, color, possibilities. And every which way, signs of power. Giant statues, dedicated to the three sister queens, all surrounding the even bigger statue of the mother queen, the predecessor, the founder, the goddess.

And Teresa was going to help in taking it all down.


	7. A suitable measure

The liquid was slowly boiling over the fire in the kitchen counter. The iron burner was gently doling it’s blue flame, tightly regulated by an attentive Mikael. This was test number five. The first three had ended with a charred crust in the pan which had taken him hours to scrub off, now he was being careful. In test four he boiled a bit of his own milk. once the water had been completely evaporated all that was left was a curdled fatty substance, very similar to cheese. Now on the latest one he had carefully filtered the red formula he was given and was boiling what remained to break out the thing into its fundamental components. The result appeared to be much the same except in this case besides the thick doughy creme, there were also small red particles.

There was a noise of steps coming from downstairs which indicated Harold had just arrived. Mikael just kept focusing on his experiments while he wrote down his observations. He was massaging one of his pecs as he did this in what was by now an unconscious gesture, forged out of habit.

‘Hey daffodil, what’s that smell? Are you cooking something?’ asked the tall man walking into the small kitchen.

‘I’m just satiating my curiosity’ the young man said, not turning his head.

‘Oh it’s one of your little experiments, please be more careful this time, Lady Kalais downstairs complained the other day that you almost burned the place down’

‘It was just a little smoke’

‘Well, smoke scares off customers, so keep it in mind’ 

Harold brushed against Mikael as he stretched to pick up some bread from the counter. The place was tiny and cramped but it was theirs.

‘So any luck?’ asked the handsome man as he sat down on the round wooden table to have his breakfast.

‘I mean, i’m not sure, as far as I can attest, when it comes to weight, volume, taste and amount of water the formula is basically identical to just plain normal milk, which doesn’t make any sense at all’

‘If they were the exact same then we would all be producing milk, right?’

‘Exactly! Everyone is already drinking our milk, so why it’s only me and the rest of the girls at the farms the ones producing’ Mikael started cleaning up his instruments and putting them away in different drawers.

‘But it can’t be the exact same, i mean, one is red, right?’

‘Yes, right, red, the only reason i can see that the formula is red is these strange granules that I keep finding in the formula if i let it rest or i boil it, look’

Mikael brushed all the particles he had collected into a cup, some clotting together into small stones, others breaking apart into fine dust. He turned and showed the cup to Harold.

‘Wow, uhm, Mikael? Perhaps you wanna… put on something?’

Mikael looked at himself and saw that he was only wearing his pants and boots, leaving his small budding breasts exposed. At first they had started as small mounds, no different from a slight inflammation or a severe bee sting. But now there was enough for gravity to play with and a noticeable curve was forming below them.

‘Oh, right, sorry’ said Mikael covering with one arm. He spent enough time at the farms that he was losing the habit of putting on clothes on top, also there was the fact that his nipples were getting sensitive enough that fabric was becoming annoying.

‘I’ll just got to my room, give me a second’

He went to his bedroom, his new, cozy, private single cotton-bed room. It hadn’t been too expensive to get with the help of Harold, located on top of a bakery ran by an old spinster known as Lady Kalais. He put on the biggest shirt he had and it still wasn’t comfortable enough. The clothes were starting to become a real problem, which was unfair considering that so far he was still only producing about a spoonful of milk for a day’s work. Luckily he was going to deal with that this morning before going to the farm.

He went back to the kitchen, still holding the cup with the red powder.

‘Harold? Shouldn’t you be used to… um… you know, watching… watching chests like that? We work at the farms’

‘It’s not the same, man, I’m used to seeing them at lunch time, in other girls, but seeing them in you is… is just different, ok?’

‘Ok, sure, so as i was saying, see this? This is the only real difference that i can find between milk and formula’

‘Well’ said Horace after taking a sip of his tea ‘I'm sure it must be some powerful magical ingredient or some new chemical developed in the capital’

‘But how do i find out?’

‘Keep testing, cross reference and compare, is that not how it’s done?’

‘Yes, i know, i came up with an idea and everything, I just grab normal milk, add this red stuff and see if it starts acting like the formula, but I can't test it on myself, I can't risk producing even less if it doesn’t work and I don't know anyone who…’ Mikael stopped talking.

‘What?’ asked his roommate.

‘Harold…’ he said, trying to measure his words ‘would you be interested in-’

‘No’ he said, soaking a loaf of buttered bread on tea.

‘You didn’t even let me fin-’

‘I said no’ he responded, taking a bite out of the bread.

‘Alright’ he didn’t want to push. The goddess knew that he had kicked and screamed all the way into lactation and no one had listened. He wasn’t going to do that to someone else.

‘I know i said i was curious about working in production but that doesn’t mean I actually want to do it, buddy’

‘No i get it, don’t worry, I’ll ask someone else’

They both finished their breakfast in silence.

When they were just about done a voice came from outside yelling “Mikael!”. The young man finished his cookie, grabbed a couple bank notes and came out the door after saying a quick goodbye to Harold. Once outside he saw his mom all the way down the external wooden stairs that led to his apartment.

‘Mom! come up here and knock on the door! You don’t need to yell’ said the son as he came down.

‘You don’t have a railing! I might fall off, you might fall off for that matter, why didn’t Kalais built one? I swear that woman only cares about coin and not one bit for the people that provide her with it’

‘Not so close to the store’ he whispered, trying to drag his mother from the bakery were Kalais worked.

‘You think I'm scared of that old hag? Please son, i went to school with her, she acts all shrewd but well i know the wallflower she used to be, very similar to you in fact’

‘Yes, doubtless, where is the clothing store you were talking about?’ he said as he walked through the small streets of his town.

‘Is not just a clothing store! Is specializes in women’s private garments’ she said, raising her nose, trying to sound as prim and proper as possible considering what she was discussing with her own son.

‘Right… I'm guessing that will be changing now’ he said, thinking out loud.

‘A lot of things are changing, I see’ she was looking at his torso.

‘Oh yes, this’ he said, looking down ‘they are what they are, though they could be producing more i guess… so, any news from dad?’

‘He was too busy to come with us’

‘He’s retired mom, he just didn’t want to come’

‘Don’t say that, you know he cares about you a lot’

‘I’m sure he does, in his own way, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is not here, does it?’

The mother looked at the young man on the face now, not sad or scandalized but attentive.

‘I notice you’re different dear’

‘Different?’

‘you are more… outspoken i see, you couldn’t stop mumbling to yourself in the past, and i guess you still do but louder now, as if you’re not afraid of being listened anymore’

‘Is it a good change or a bad change?’

‘It’s a sign that you are growing i’d say’ she sighed ‘every mother faces this sooner or later, we never truly know what our babies are going to grow up as, especially not the moment we set them free on the world, we just hope that it’s not too crooked and say to ourselves that we are happy if they are happy’

‘Would you say i look happy?’

‘Do you need to ask that question?’

Did he? Ever since he had moved out and found his own apartment he had felt… focused was the word. He had clear, self determined objectives in his life. To learn about magic, about the milking process and the formula. To get through his five years at the farm. To do his job. He wasn’t sure if to call that feeling of purpose happiness, but it sure was better than the way his life used to be.

‘We’re here son’

He shook his head and saw the building in front of them. It was done all in black varnished wood, with red drapes covering the inside of the windows. A sign with a long winding lace painted on it claimed the name of “the silken fit”.

They walked inside and if his mom had claimed there had been a change in his attitude, the change was immediately reverted. He turned his head to the floor, overwhelmed as his arms were tightly clasped in front of him. He didn’t get to see a lot of the place beyond a vague impression of black shelves and racks all packed with clothing. Whatever wasn’t black furniture seemed to be covered in a rich, red wallpaper.

‘Why, helloooooooo my dear ms Bloomsbury!’ said a woman with a nasal voice and he heard the sound of heels clacking on the floor getting closer. He raised his head and saw a tall woman, bending down to reach both of his mother’s cheeks with her lips. Each kiss left a red imprint in his mom who seemed to be delighted by the greeting.

‘And you must be little Mikey, your mom told me a lot about you boy!’ the woman was taller than him by a full head, half of which was due to her footwear, the other half due to the looming tower that was her hair. Curls upon curls upon curls, as if her hair had gotten frozen in time while the woman fell down a hole. A complex arrangement of flowers and what it seemed like a stuffed bird were inserted into the mane. The rest of her was similarly overdesigned, from her gigantic dress which created a buffer of fifty centimeters of clothing between her and the rest of the world, to the paints that caked her face. ‘I am Vinessia, welcome to my store dear!’

‘Hello’ was all he said.

‘Now, I know exactly why you’re here my boy, but don’t worry, my girl will take care of you’

He took a deep breath, he should have been used to these situations by now yet a part of him couldn’t help but feel embarrassed all the same. He tried to look at the merchandise without blushing and he failed spectacularly. He not only got flushed but started sweating on top of it.

‘Now what are you looking at?’ said the flamboyant woman, pressing her dress against him ‘have you seen something you might be interested in trying? How about this set with the lilac pattern embroidered on it? Do you think it would fit you?’ she said while holding what was probably a brassiere only in concept since the form was closer to a honeycomb flipped inside out made on silk.

He extended a trembling hand, resigned to his fate when Vinessia started laughing.

‘Ohohohohohohoho! I’m just kidding kid! My dear! Of course these are not for you! I made a special batch for the new boys that will be working at the farms a month ago! Oh Bloomsbury’ she added talking to the mother ‘your son is a riot’

‘He can be innocent’ his mother said with a humor in her voice he was not used to listen.

He dropped the reaching hand, still unable to take his eyes away from the brassiere. 

‘Helein! Would you come here dear and help mister Mikael find a suitable brassiere while i talk with dear miss Bloomsbury here?’

‘On it mistress’ said a voice that came from a girl Mikael had completely failed to notice.

‘Over here’ A hand grabbed him by the arm and even with the contact and the voice to guide him he was struggling to truly focus into view the tiny woman. Outrageous as Vinessia had been, she seemed to occlude with her visual noise the far more discrete Helein. Small, of dark beige clothing, a tight bun holding her hair and big round glasses hiding most of her face away. Her steps were short and constant dragging him all the way to the back of the store were booths with mirrors were set to try the different products.

‘This is the line for male workers, padded on the inside to absorb leaks, stretching cloth and multi-tiered hooks for breasts still in development, here are our three main sizes for you to try, walk into the booth and tell me which fits you better’ She spoke with very little emotion on her voice and without any real eye to eye contact. A bunch of different bras were offered in a rack in one hand, and the other was stretched towards the booths that could be covered with a curtain to get privacy.

He grabbed the garments and walked into the booth. He could see himself in the mirror, skinny, sad eyes, a forest of hair. He started undressing. The brassieres themselves weren’t much to look at. Basic shapes, unadorned, functional design. The fabric was of a color not unlike milk mixed with tea, it basically blended with his own skin. Was that it? He couldn’t help but think there was a lot more creativity on the other options he had seen.

He put on the first one by wrapping it around his belly with the hooks pointing forwards, so that they were reachable. Once he clasped them he turned the thing around and raised it until it cupped his breasts. It was much too big for his frame. He then put on the second one and that was actually much too small, which made him do a second take. He was actually big enough that certain options were smaller now? He tried the third one and, while it seemed to fit well enough, it was just unbearable to use. It scratched and scraped against his skin. He couldn’t believe that women used these all the time without complaint.

‘I… uh, I think there is something broken with um… this thing?’

He heard a sigh from the other side of the curtain.

‘You got it on backwards’

He looked back and was able to check that the seams were visible which indicated that he had, in fact, put it on the inside out.

‘How did you know?’

‘You’re the third boy who came to buy one this week’

‘Oh, right’

He corrected it. Then everything made sense. It was the final puzzle piece. It was a second skin. It gave structure and support for his body to fit to. It contained without constricting, it gave sensible limitations to truly appreciate his current breath of potential. Though it would have been nicer if it looked prettier.

‘How’s it now?’ asked the girl.

‘I… I think this one fits!’

‘You think? Let me check’

She came in and he instinctively covered his chest with his arms. She clicked her tongue.

‘You put it a bit too tight, it will leave you marks when you take it out, let me help’

She unclasped the hooks on his back and clasped them back giving him a bit more room to breathe. The change was better.

He couldn't stop looking at himself in the mirror. It was uncanny. It looked so natural, so seamless. The clothing gave legitimacy to the new shapes on his body that he hadn’t felt before. The fact that it was his to look at shamelessly was inebriating. He felt a sudden urge to gently caress his mounds but he didn’t dare do it in front of the girl.

‘Yes, it looks well enough on you, though they will get bigger so I would advise that you buy at least one measurement larger, just in case’ she said.

‘Can I see how you look?’ said his mother from the other side of the store.

‘Um...’

‘Bloomsbury!’ interjected Vennissia ‘this is a very special and intimate moment for him, let him enjoy himself first! Give him a chance to get used to it’

Helein stepped out leaving Mikael alone on the booth again. In front of no one, he dared give a little twirl and then a small jump. They bounced alright. They were round, and they were full and they were his. Perhaps this wasn’t so bad after all.

He came out of the booth slowly, rubbing one arm and shrinking his head between his shoulders. Venissia clasped her hands delighted.

‘You look lovely sweety!’

His mom didn't look as enthused.

‘Oh goddess’ she said ‘i… wow, they just look so natural son… I never thought I would see you like this’

‘Well…’ he said, unsure with what attitude to approach this situation ‘i think it fits’

‘Of course it fits!’ said the decorated woman ‘I made it!’

‘With a little help from me’ murmured Helein so low that only Mikael heard it.

‘You should buy another, one size bigger just in case of further development, you know, i can make a special price for the occasion if you like’ the colorful lady proceeded, winking.

‘I already said that to him’ murmured the girl again, while guiding mikael back to the other side of the store.

‘So…. you made these?’ said Mikael at Helein, while she was wrapping the clothes.

‘Almost entirely, at most she proposed the idea’

She was packing up the brassieres into a paper bag.

‘And uh, have you made for example…?’ he got closer to her and turned down his voice ‘that piece of clothing here?’

She slowly turned her head looking at him askance, blinked once while raising an eyebrow and then followed his index finger all the way to the other side of the store. She saw a purple brassiere with a twirl pattern and black laces lining the borders.

‘That one? You like that one?’ it was hard to tell if she was mocking him or she just wanted confirmation and was blunt in her way of speaking. He decided to trust it was the latter.

‘It just...uh...it, um, it looks elegant’

‘You want to try it on?’

‘N-no, no, goddess mine, is just i, you know, I was just curious about it’

‘I helped with it’ she went back to packaging the clothes into a paper bag.

‘Y-you think it would fit me? If i, if i were to try it i mean’

She sighed and strolled up to the brassiere to pick it up, when she came back she almost pushed him into the dressing booth with it.

‘I told you, You’re not the first boy that I attended this week, just try it’

‘O-ok, if you insist’ he immediately pushed the curtain aside and put the bra on.

It looked good, it looked really good. Both by itself and with his body. He just couldn’t stop admiring it from every conceivable angle. It was one thing to look at something pretty but it was a whole different thing when that pretty thing was himself. A pretty thing he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be, but that he was anyway.

‘So?’ she asked, dry ‘are you having fun?’

‘It looks really nice’ he was now raising his arms over his head, just to see how his shoulders pulled on his chest and how the bra accommodated to it ‘how do you get the color to be so… intense?’

‘We use very concentrated dyes, usually extracted from plants or pigments’

‘Dyes?’

‘Yes, you grab something that has a very intense color, if it’s a rock or a mineral you ground it into powder which makes it easier to mix into a very concentrated sludge with high persistency on the clothes, if it’s from an organic source you boil it over with certain chemicals but that tends to give less intense results, I discovered a new technique that can reduce organic materials into powder, you know? And since it was organic it could be used on all sorts of things besides clothing, food for example, it went all the way up to the capital but…’ she cut herself off suddenly.

‘But what?’

‘Well’ her voice had gotten animated during her speech but now it recovered its monotone ‘Venissia was the one that got the credit out of that’

‘Oh, uhm, i’m sorry’

He came out of the booth.

‘Don’t say sorry, you are not guilty… and it looks really pretty on you by the way’ She gave him a tiny smile.

‘Thanks…’ he smiled as well, then he thought about it for a second and started searching his pockets ‘hey, look i… ok look, i… I kind of want to buy something else from you, but I don't want them to know about it’ he pointed with his head to the two older ladies who were still chatting away at the front of the store ‘so how about i pay you here, and I give you a little extra, just to make it discreet?’

‘That’s… a bit irregular’

‘I was just curious if you could get me right here a bit of that colorant of yours…? Um specifically the red type?’

‘I… i don’t think i’m allowed to do that’

‘Think about it, it would be a chance to earn some rightful money out it for yourself’

She looked at him with an intense glare on her eyes. Had he pushed too hard? She accommodated her glasses.

‘Wait right here’

An hour later he was walking to work wearing his new functional bra and a small letter, containing a fine red powder, hidden between bra and breast. He went through the usual routine, got cleaned up, put on his uniform and stood on his booth getting his budding breasts suctioned for two hours throughout which he produced a couple of thin sprays of milk at most.

After that came lunch break and he went to sit down on the long table in his usual spot, with the stallions. They were a group of about ten men, all big and muscular in multiple ways. Some cut and sculpted, other wiry and thin, and other corpulent and solid like a barrell. They were orbited by the four tender young men who had been drafted to produce, amongst which was Mikael, sitting next to Harold. Despite the strong difference in complexion and occupation between the two groups, all of them got along with the utmost camaraderie. Sharing jokes, food, personal space and just general goodwill amongst each other. There was some gentle ribbing to be had at the expense of the new assets being developed by the softer member of the group (and some gentle rubbing as well) but all in all it couldn’t be said that it was not in good fun.

‘So you finally decided to try Milk, daffodil?’ asked Harold when he saw Mikael’s tray.

‘Something like that’ next to the glass of milk he also had his jar of formula and the cup with the red particules he had extracted from it at home. He also pulled out the letter with the dye powder and compared both.

The particules looked remarkably similar to the pigmentation, he served the milk on two glasses and put the powder on one and the dye in the other. The resulting mix looked exactly like the formula. When he tasted all three he was able to check that the taste was likewise similar.

But this was all first impressions, a real test would be to have someone take both mixtures he had prepared for a few days to see if there were any effects, he couldn’t try it on himself since his own production was strangely low for what he was supposed to be making, he needed a standard control individual. He had checked with the other men who were working producing and they were all able to give at least a glass full of milk at the end of their shifts.

‘What you got there?’ asked another of the stallions, a full bearded man with a neck the size of Mikael’s waist.

‘It’s um… an experiment i guess’

‘Wow, you’re making more formula by yourself?’ asked another one of the men at the table, one of the producers.

‘Something like that… in fact, hey, are you guys running out of formula?’

‘I am basically done with mine’ said Joshua, one of the boys who had an argument with Teresa they day before they were recruited ‘I’m going to have to ask more upstairs’

‘Yeah me too, ugh, am I the only one who is a bit creeped out by Loretta?’ said another boy, thin, freckles and deep shadows under his eyes ‘Ahw mah dahwling!’ he said mimicking the voice of the fat woman ‘Cahme hea’ and give big mama Lotta a hug!’

Everyone laughed at the easy joke.

‘Well guys look’ said Mikael ‘i have all this leftover formula and i can just give it to you if that seems fine’

‘Where did you get so much? Is that why you’re producing basically nothing man? Are you skipping?’

Mikael took two big swigs from his own jar to prove otherwise.

‘I’ve been drinking just as much as anyone does, I don't know why i’m having trouble but i’m trying to find out and if you guys take some of this formula you’re going to help me with that’

‘Come on guys’ goaded Harold ‘just take it, if you don’t they’ll send poor daffodil to the breeding grounds and we all know he would be terrible raising kids’

The whole table burst into laughter again in the loud and boisterous way men are known to do. The idea of a pregnant Mikael was just too ridiculous. The other two men took the liquids the young man was offering.

‘If you notice any difference in your output just go upstairs and ask for normal formula, i’m just trying to check something quick’

‘Sure, whatever you say buddy’

After that the lunch was over and they all got up from the table and started walking towards their respective shifts. However, before Mikael and Harold could cross the double doors to exit the dining hall, they were stopped by none other than the captain herself.

She was no longer wearing her full metal armor, instead opting for a black turtleneck and a light leather armor on top. She was still carrying her knife and sword at the hip and it was with one hand on the handle of the latter that she said.

‘Mikael Bloomsbury, Harold Jukheim, you are to come with me’

***

‘Drink some milk, please’ said the lady taking notes on the other side of the table. She was a thin woman with a long nose, wearing the administrative uniform from the farm, a simple vest and shirt tucked within high cut pants, an ascot surrounding her neck.

‘I think I'm good thanks’ said Harold.

It was just the two of the, plus two guards in the small room. She had been taking notes on a stack of yellow papers but she interrupted this when she heard the answer. There was a single lightsource in the room, a small circular window on the roof. The light fell in such a way that even when the lady raised her face towards the man, shadows were still covering her eyes and chin.

‘I must stop adding the please at the end’ she said ‘though politeness may demand it, it gives the false impression to people that i was merely requesting’ She snapped her fingers.

Two strong sets of arms came from behind him and forced his arms down onto the armchair sporting leather cuffs. Though he was strong the surprise caught him off guard. He was tied to it, then they proceeded to bound his legs. The guards retreated.

‘Let’s try a second time with the clarification that there will be a third try and no further needed, i will get the milk close to your lips and you will drink it, because i will ask politely’

She walked around the table, grabbing the glass. He remained relaxed, looking at the ground. 

‘Would you drink this milk, please?’

When the glass was close enough he head butted it making it spill all it’s contents. The officer sighed looking at the stains on her suit.

‘Now why would you do that? Were you perhaps working under the impression that this was our last reserve? Or that maybe a couple more seconds of our time wasted will stop this from happening?’

‘Because fuck you, that’s why’

‘Very well, let’s try, yet again, on to option three’ she walked out of the room.

Hands showed up from behind once again, this time tying his head with a belt to the chair. One of the hands grabbed his cheeks with enough pressure that it threatened to cave his teeth inside his mouth, forcing him to open it. They pushed a funnel into it that went far enough to trigger his puking reflex. 

‘Breathe through your nose and be mindful to cooperate, lest you suffocate, yes?’ said the woman coming back with another glass ‘now, would you be so kind as to accept this milk that we are generously offering to you, please?’

She slowly poured the milk into the funnel. He tried to blow it out of his mouth by exhaling air but all it did was generate bubbles until his breath ran out and then he had no option but to swallow. He coughed brutally for a good minute afterwards, while they removed his restraints.

By the time he finished gawking the woman with the long nose was sitting back down on her chair, taking notes again.

‘Seems like an awful lot of effort… just to share some milk’ he commented, trying to stay defiant.

‘It is well worth it, as everything done within our kingdom, now i have a series of questions that I would like to go through, if you don’t mind, first please confirm that your name is Harold Jukheim’

‘Uh, Yes it is but you already know that’ he answered, trying to sound ironic.

‘We do now, your age would be 24, is that correct?’

‘Yeah, sure’ he wasn’t sure where they wanted to go with this. His throat was still sore from the coughing and he was thirsty now.

‘You have been working at this farm for…?’

‘Three years, i guess? Don’t you have that written down?’ he looked at the glass of milk, she hadn’t given him all of it and his throat was really hurting now. Whatever, he had already drank so taking a bit more to clear his windpipes couldn’t hurt much more. It tasted really fucking good.

‘And what was your occupation here those three years?’

‘I’m a stallion’ he said with pride. He took another gulp from the glass.

‘That is the colloquial terminology, if you don’t mind, would you be a bit more specific?’

‘Sure, i am an official mechanical operator, i run, maintain and repair the vacuum pumps specifically’

‘And was that all you did in your role as a “stallion”?’

His face contracted, eyebrows and mouth both pointing towards the center of it.

‘You know damn well what else i did here’

‘We would like to hear it from you, please’

He finished the glass, before he put it back on the table someone replaced it with another one, full.

‘You would like to hear it from me, uh? How’s about this, you made me fuck the girls who couldn’t produce until they were pregnant’

‘And you ever refused to perform?’ she said, crossing her hands.

‘What, are you judging me? it was your fucked up organization what forced me to do it, and it was only ever three times’

‘You only had sex three times in your life’

‘Don’t play stupid with me’ he said, as he drank half of the glass in one go, then he slopply wiped the milk that was falling of a corner of his mouth ‘you know what i mean, and i did refused the third time’

‘And yet you did it all the same’

‘Because you threatened me to put me on production!’ he was now licking the remains of milk on his fingers and then he finished the rest of the glass, which was again replaced, this time by a bottle.

‘I imagine that would build up resentment’

‘No fucking shit, it would’

‘You had another job on the side, didn’t you?’

‘Yes’ he said. Now he was interrupting his drinking only to talk.

‘It was driving Miss Derringider’s auto locomotive to deliver cheese to other towns on your free time’

‘I…’ another gulp ‘...needed the money’

‘So you knew how to drive a vehicle?’

‘Yup’ the bottle was finished ‘godess, what the fuck did you put on this?’

‘Would you like to drink more?’ asked the interrogator.

‘I… just… fuck it, yes’

‘Then drink’ said Loretta, walking from behind him and showing him her boobs.

He hesitated for only a second, then he grabbed a breast and started sucking with desperation. It was like a hot bath on a cold day. It was impossible to leave. And the more time he took, the colder got outside and the hotter the water, gradually enough that by the time he realized what was happening it was already boiling hot.

‘You like this?’ asked Loretta.

‘I- goddess, dear fuck, yes’ he said sputerring white liquid out of his mouth.

‘And do you like me?’ she was stroking the back of his head.

‘Yes! Yes! I love you!’

‘Call me mama lotta, please dear’

‘I love you mama Lotta, i love you’

‘You wouldn’t lie to mama lotta, would you?’

‘No, no never!’

‘Then tell me, did you crash that Auto locomotive into the farm?’

‘Yes! I did! I’m… I'm sorry mama, i’m so sorry!’

‘It’s ok sweety, it’s alright, don’t worry about it’ she was hugging his head, pressing him against her chest, making sure he could listen to the low and comforting beat of her heart ‘now go to sleep, go to sleep in my arms and when you wake up everything will be alright’

Harold fell unconscious.

Loretta opened her arms, letting him fall to the ground.

‘Take him to the breeding grounds’ she said to the guards, then she turned her head towards the interrogator who was collecting her papers ‘and thank you so much for your help, Stella dear’

‘It was no problem at all, mama Lotta’

***

Mikael was sitting in the next room, the captain’s office. The woman was examining a bunch of papers, clearly wishing she was somewhere else, doing something else. 

Mikael was slowly sipping on a glass of milk that had been offered to him. He wouldn't say no to anything that woman demanded after what she had done to his back.

‘So, mister bloomsbury, you live with mister Jukheim?’

‘Uh, yes, we rented an apartment together, on top of a bakery’

‘Quite’ she left the papers and leaned over her desk with her hands tangled ‘now were you aware that it was mister Jukheim the one that crashed the auto locomotive into the barn, giving you both and Miss Seneca the chance to escape?’ 

‘What! Harold? That’s… that can’t be true!’

‘I take it you were not aware then, which makes things easier here, um, please drink a bit more milk’ She gestured to the glass with her hand.

Mikael did, it tasted good.

‘Now, please confirm one more time, where you involved in the plan of escape with Miss Seneca and Mister Jukheim three weeks ago?’

‘No, no I wasn't, Teresa involved me on it at the last second’

‘Very well, i believe you Mister Bloomsbury’ She leaned back in her chair, going back to her paperwork ‘now there a couple more details to address, first of all, were you tampering with your assigned formula?’

‘Tampering?’ 

Mikael started to shift on his chair.

‘We keep a measure of your rate of consumption, you haven’t been drinking as much as you should have, which might explain your underperformance’

‘Well, not… tampering as it were’

‘But…?’ The captain raised an eyebrow.

‘I just, i’ve been setting a bit aside to examine it, just to understand how it works, that’s all’

‘Well, I can't say that is encouraged by the farm, mister Bloomsbury, do refrain from doing so in the future, I would hate for you to…’ she cut herself short from saying something ‘i just wouldn’t like to administer another punishment, that’s all, you can go back to your job’

‘Thank you, captain’


	8. A desperate petition

The capital was turning out to be a huge disappointment for him. He had imagined something different when he left his small town to rub elbows with the aristocracy. For one there hadn’t been much elbow rubbing, though there had been plenty of elbow shoving with the commoners on the streets. How could a place so big and so splendid managed to be crowded to the brim with unpleasant lowlives? It was counterintuitive, the small villages were the places where one was supposed to feel constricted and claustrophobic, not the giant avenues of the capital. 

There were so many people around him that he could barely appreciate the high towers, risen aloft in marble columns, or the golden plating that accentuated the balconies, or the majestic statues on top of each building and on every corner. There were so many yells and noises and voices that one could barely distinguish the songs of the street musicians, or the clear tingling of the waterways that crossed the city, filling it with bridges to cross. There were so many events and public festivities that he could barely glimpse the three sister queens, who came out to their balcony every noon, constantly shrouded in a beatific aura of magestuosity, to bless their subjects. And there were so many officials and rituals and filing and secretaries to cross between him and the queens that he despaired of ever been noticed by anyone of importance.

After presenting his recount of production rates on his first day there he had been rebuffed, bounced off, rejected and dismissed at every application and proposal he had made to present his ideas with higher ups. But he still held hope. He knew that official channels were never the actual ways in which power conducted business. Instead he attended parties, galas, charity events, making use of key bribery since his savings couldn’t pay an actual entrance to any of those things. Once he was drinking egg nogs with the finest, he saw a chance to insert his ideas into conversation. Then there too, he was ignored which was all the more mortifying.

When he decided to insert himself into the court politics he had expected and prepared to deal with sabotage, with intrigue, with subtle games within games. He had armed himself with suitable cloaks and daggers. But the reality was that he didn’t seem to be deemed worthy of even the bluntest of social maneuvers. No one bothered to rope him into fiendish machinations or incorporate him into any intricate realpolitiking.

Nothing was more humiliating or derisive than indifference. Were his insights not good enough? Were perchance his observations of the economy insufficiently acute? He spent every morning on the library, examining public records, cross referencing old statistics extracted from musty census. He had never put as much effort into his actual job as he had done on this personal project. But all of his studies were useless if he couldn’t amaze anyone with them. There was only one option left for him, one that he wasn’t very keen on since it put him on the same level as the rest of the populus. He would have to go to the communal feed. 

On the seventh day of the week a ritual was performed, headed by the three sisters. It was a way for the people to feel closer to their leaders as well for all as a nation to commune with their goddess. The religious ceremony was held in the chambers of the white palace itself, home of the queen sisters. A big superstructure that none the less wasn’t enough to contain the thousands of pilgrims, fanatics and worshipers, all waiting for their chance to pray at the feet of their monarchs. To be noticed amongst that crowd was going to be hard but he had a plan, a plan that relied on his special abilities which had been far less reliable ever since that disgusting child had kicked him in the face, back in the cruiser.

All the same, he had no choice but to try. The sacred day arrived and he found himself pushing against the crowd amidst the spiraled columns of the white palace. The place was a giant circle, with walls made out of pink colored windows rather than brick or mortar. The light came through and gave a slightly organic tone to the room, as if they were inside a belly or a mouth. A truncated, three sided pyramid was in the middle, with the three queens atop, each facing a different side. At the base of the altar there were three priests, one for every side, guarding each of the three stairs that led to the queens. Fenugreek seeds were being burnt in vases, a low drum beat slowly in the distance, made to simulate the beat of a human heart. There was no singing or hymns or chants. All that was required to commune with the goddess was to close eyes, ears and breathe with an open mouth, deeply and slowly.

The drum stopped. The ritual began. The three sisters stood tall on their altar, with their ample bosoms exposed to the world. By far the largest Horace had ever seen in any woman. The sisters looked all similar between each other, with perhaps minor differences in haircut and dress decoration. Their clothing was a more elegant version of the standard farm uniform, silk gloves that went all the way up to the elbows, a high dress that covered their lower ribs and a gossamer gown covering their hair. Their noses were up and their eyes were closed, no discernible emotion on their face. They went down on all fours as the priests went up the stairs. Once the priests were all the way up the drum began again, this time more frenetic and the queens were milked.

Horace had seen people being milked in his previous work at the farms but he had never seen breasts produce streams as big as those. Their nipples were fountains where milk was coming at high volumes and pressure, flowing into the carvings of the pyramid and then falling down the stairs in three white waterfalls, drenching the multitude. The people raised their arms and opened their mouths, taking in the blessing. Every seventh day the same miracle occured, a gift given by the goddess herself and channeled through her daughters to the people. The bureaucrat did the same as everyone else at first, so he wouldn’t stand out, but as more milk entered his mouth the more fervor and conviction was into his chanting. 

“Thank you mother!” was the scream of the crowd to which he joined as feverishly as everyone else. The queens themselves seemed to be just as raptured by the moment, gasping for air, moaning in ecstasy, tears falling down their faces. People were falling to the ground taken over by holy convulsions. At that exact moment noon came and a single vertical beam of light fell down a circular window, located in the highest point of the dome, illuminating the queens. The light traversed across the white liquid and for an entire minute the whole room shone as if they were drinking light. The goddess was there with them.

One would think that all this sacred exaltation would make the bureaucrat forget his base concerns about socio economic development and how he could make his name contributing to it. But instead his drive became even more resolute. He was absolutely convinced that he had discovered something of actual importance in his daily research, a vital piece of information that had to be shared with people in seats of power as soon as possible. And so, when the priests came down the stairs to accept supplicants, Horace pushed alongside everyone else to get a chance to talk directly with the queens.

Of course, in every ritual only a very small percentage of the people got to climb those stairs to prey right in front of the face of the goddess. Their prayers first had to be heard by the priests and deemed worthy enough. But Horace had something that very few people had, he had magic. It was a basic trick that he had learned at a very young age. Whenever he wanted a toy that his older brothers wanted he would steal it and then claimed it had disappeared, and whenever he wanted to pull a prank on his younger sisters he would pretend to take off his own fingers, making them cry. As time went on these deceptions became more and more elaborate, making small balls disappear inside cups, cards disappear within sleeves and animals disappear within hats, and every time he would claim that he had just made them invisible. With time the tricks seemed to become easier to him, the effects of them seemed to linger, the invisibility seemed to stick. And before he could notice he was actually making things become impossible to see.

To this day it was still not something he understood entirely, or that he could call forth whenever he wanted. The best effects were usually achieved after he had made some work to set the mood, to prepare a narrative, to create a scene. But in this specific situation, with the goddess herself present, with miracles happening in front of everyone’s eyes, with the emotions already prepared to believe anything that was put in front of them, there was no need for build up. It was just a matter of putting his hands in front of someone’s eyes and whisper  _ “i have made you blind”.  _ In reality their eyes were just made invisible, but if light couldn’t touch them then they couldn’t perceive light, simple as that.

In this manner he got the people out of the way, suddenly a lot more concerned with their loss of eyesight than to push forward in the crowd, and he walked right up to the base of the pyramid where a priest was awaiting him. As soon as he got there he snapped his fingers and returned the people their eyesight, so that they wouldn’t make too much a fuss.

‘And what is your prayer, son of ours?’ asked the priest, the stereotype of a kindly old man, that stood between the stairs and him.

‘I came not to ask but to give’ started Horace ‘for i have urgent advice to give to our queens’

‘That is most kind and generous, but the queens are not only wise, they also possess numerous advisors, not to mention the counsel of their mother goddess herself’

‘I’m well aware of this!’ he said quickly, before he could get pushed to the side by the crowd ‘but i believe the queens may not be aware of the danger that I am speaking of, otherwise they would have done something to prevent it!’

‘And how do you know of the queens actions or their far reaching consequences? Can you tell what size will the snowball have once it finished rolling down the hill? Can you see how far the waves in the pond will reach after the stone was cast?’

‘I do not know, is true, but I also don’t know if they know and i would like to be sure that i made everything possible and left no stone unturned in order to make this world a better place!’ people were starting to push him away, there were complaints amongst the crowd that he was hogging the first place for far too long.

‘’You want’, So now you are no longer giving but asking, are you not?’

‘But..but i-just give me a minute!’ he yelled to someone who was trying to push him to the side ‘you don't even know what i have to suggest! You are already measuring my worth without even stopping to listen!’

‘You have had plenty of opportunity to say what you had to say and you haven’t said it, how valuable could it really be?’

In his struggle to stop the crowd from dragging him away, Horace thrust forward an arm that was being grabbed, almost striking the priest. The old man caught the hand before it touched his face.

‘Now i do believe that there are others who also want their chance to have their voices heard, my son, so please move aside’

‘Th-the birth rates! They are changing!’ he accepted this was as far as he was going to get so he decided to finally share his discovery ‘the proportions of men and women are becoming unsustainable and…’

‘We know this’

‘Y-you know…?’

‘Of course we do’ the priest hadn’t let go of his hand yet ‘as i said, the queens have advisors, plenty of people who are smarter than you, more experienced than you and who get paid a lot more than you do to solve these problems’ The crowd was now pulling him with the strength of a mob yet the grip of the old man kept him immobile ‘you thought you were smarter than an entire staff of governance? That you can solve everyone’s problems by just thinking about them for a couple of hours on your sofa? That you have caught a low hanging fruit everyone else was just too stupid to pick up on? You think you are special or remarkable in any way? You’re not, you are just a lowly, perfectly average man, desperate to make a mark in the world, just like everyone else and who will fail, just like everyone else’ The old man gave his wrinkliest, kindest and most wizened of smiles.

No.

The old man would not win, he wouldn’t allow it. He would push and kick and scream and do whatever it took to wipe that disgusting smile off his face. But he didn’t need to do any of that, he had something far more powerful than kicks or screams.

_ ‘Then i have one more thing to give old man _ ’ he said pointing his middle and index fingers towards the old man’s eyes. His eyes caught the light in that way they did when he was about to do wonders.

The priest saw this and raised his eyebrows. Horace’s fingers were trapped by the priest’s hands and then broken. Horace yelled above all the other screams of frustration and impatience in the crowd.

‘A threat to the queens, i see!’ claimed the priest as he forced the bureaucrat to the floor by extending his arm down, guards started to run there ‘A criminal and a blasphemer who intended to harm our leaders’

The priest only let go of his hand to then step on it with his full weight, Horace screamed again, he had never experienced this much pain, not even when the wretched girl had kicked him in the nose. His eyes couldn’t focus on anything, he felt he could barf. As he laid down on the floor the milk was still running, covering half of his face. He was then picked up by the guards.

Once risen, his feet didn’t touch the ground. One of his eyes couldn’t be opened, covered as it was in lactose. The other was barely capable of focusing on anything considering how the pain overrode all other perception. He saw the priest’s face. He wasn’t smiling anymore. In his sorry state he decided to consider that a small win.

_ Stay defiant _ . He refused to give this people a clean and satisfying victory. Whatever they were about to do with him he was going to raise his head and laugh in their faces as they dragged him off. But when he turned his head upwards he caught a glimpse of the queens.

They were looking at him. They didn't look solemn or indifferent or disdainful. They looked sad.

Before he could process anything else he was hit on the head with a blunt weapon and everything was darkness.

***

_ Do not awake yet. _

He opened his eyes. 

_ Don’t look at your hands, look at me. _

He started to slowly raise his gaze. Where was he? All he could see was cloth. A very delicate gossamer, filled with bows and ribbons the size of the world, going on wherever he looked, all in soft pastel colors. But they didn’t stretch as a surface of a canvas, the fabric was wrapped around mounds the size of hills, mountains, and he was falling there.

_ Do not panic, please. _

And he didn’t because he was asked politely.

He crashed into the soft silk that was covering an even softer substance. It was hard to stand up on it for how it plied below his weight, as if was the most gentle of pillows. 

_ I cannot see you but that is fine, I can hear you all the same and that is what matters for our purposes. _

That voice sounded wrong, as if it wasn’t going into his ears but out of them. He tried to run up to a nearby dome, also covered in clothing but he found that it was easier to bounce there, he weighed as much as a feather.

_ There was something urgent you wanted to communicate, you have drank our milk, mine specifically and so i can be here with you but that won’t be for long so please hurry up. _

Once he climbed to the top of the dome he almost rolled back down out of astonishment.

He was not walking on a landscape, he was walking on a person, an absurdly large person lying down, big enough to occupy his entire field of vision and a little more. It was one of the queens and from his vantage point at the top of her left boob he could see her face in the distance, looking up, her nostrils alone as big as himself.

‘What is this!? What is happening!?’

_ It is but a dream, a dream that I am visiting in order to hear you, you are unconscious inside one of our deepest cells within our castle, i cannot go there physically for it may arise suspicion within the court and the priests, so i come here to you for as long as our connection lasts. _

He could not see her mouth move with the words, or her eyes open. If it weren't for the gentle rise and fall of the ground that was her chest and the color of her skin, he would have believed to be atop a statue.

‘M-my queen, i am most honoured…’

_ Do not call me queen, address me only as Abraxas, for that is my true name. _

‘Abraxas, yes, i um, as i was saying i am most honoured and indeed humbled by this…’

_ I said we don’t have a lot of time, you were talking about a warning, what was it? _

‘Yes, the warning, it’s… well as it turns out I have been examining the birth rates of our kingdom from the past fifty years and i made some worrying discoveries’

_ Such as? _

‘The proportion of males and females on our population have been shifting, back then it was that sixty percent of our babies were born female, and forty percent male, but now that number is eighty for the women and twenty for the men! Not to mention that couples have to resort to adopting from the farms a lot more often than they used to! If it continues like this our nation won’t be able to continue reproducing!’

_ Yes, this was something we were aware of, what do you suggest we do? _

‘Ah, well, suggest? I’m not, that is not my speciality you see, i just…’

_ So that is it? Just a useless warning with no plan of action? The worst kind of non constructive criticism? This is what all the struggle and scandal was about? _

Her voice had lost some of its majestic composure, giving certain feelings of frustration away, which was jarring when coupled with her still magnanimous expression.

‘I mean, i… I would suggest to investigate why this is happening and how to counteract it’

_ Basically what anyone else would say, what I myself would think of doing, dear me, you’re useless, my sisters and I must be getting truly desperate. _

‘Wait! I do have suggestions!’ he said, trying to think of some on the spot. He lost his balance on the soft surface and rolled down the bosom and into the clavicules of the queen ‘we could ask for the male population of the mountain kingdom to come to our country in exchange for the milk we are giving to them!, we, uh, we could try and encourage a more proactive breeding from our population to buy time!’

_ These are all ideas we already thought of, anything else? _

‘Well, i…’ he made an effort to not look back, knowing there was a cleavage the size of a house behind him ‘i know there are spies within this kingdom, i know of their identity’

_ You do? That is actually interesting, continue… _

‘There is a clown, a man, skeletical, dark hair, he went by the name of Martzilanderious… uh something, and a young girl, strong and fair, with freckles and red hair’

_ That is rather vague but is something i guess _

‘I could help, i can keep investigating about these matters, just give me access to your files in the palace, give me a position as you royal census and i…’

_ A position? Did you not hear what I said? You are trapped in a cell, you have been arrested for using foreign magic, which is something we still need to talk about, you are not going to become part of our staff, you are going to be interrogated and probably executed. _

‘Executed…? But, can’t you do something? Set me free?’

_ I cannot, matters are much more complicated than you realize, far more complicated, certainly than what i would care to explain to you. _

He considered himself a resolute man. He assessed his mettle as steady and unshakeable, he was ambitious and driven. Not even when facing the old priest he had lost hope of finding a way but here, disregarded by a giant avatar of divinity, his inner strength was finally crumbling once and for all.

_ All this was for you and you alone, was it not? You cared nothing about helping anything or anyone but yourself, hidden only by the flimsiest of charitable intentions. _

‘I’m going to die…’

_ And now that is all that matters to you, once again, what happened to the rebel i saw at the base of the altar, facing off against a priest of the fucking goddess herself? What of your tricks, of your magic? _

‘My magic? Can my magic get me out of that cell?’

_ I don’t know, can it? _

‘I don't believe it would be of much help’

_ And that is precisely why it wont work, now hear me and hear me well. _

An arm came from the horizon and grabbed his full body, taking him all the way up to her face. Her eyes were now opened and he felt he could dive into the pupils and sink forever more. Her mouth was opened as well, framed by full lips that one could comfortably use as body pillows.

_ You have magic that comes not from the goddess, a rare gift that save few exceptions, is squashed away by our kingdom, a gift that could be powerful enough to decide the fate of a nation but that alas, has been granted to you _

She took him closer still so that his head was surrounded by the soft, moist lips that were still not moving with every word.

_ Believe, there is no bigger power for a magician than to be fooled by his own tricks, for that is what all gods truly are. _

Half of his body was now inside the mouth, by barely moving a few inches he could have laid his face against the wet, fleshy bed that was the queen’s tongue. If he said nothing, it was because he was too terrified to do so.

_ Time is running out, i’m going to wake you up and when you do you will find the door to your cell opened and the guards gone for just a few minutes, everything that happens afterwards is up to you. _

He was pressed against the tongue now, making his body slimy with saliva. The giant pink muscle was moving, enveloping his body, pressing him against the her palate, wiggling all around. He could hear a distant echo coming from beyond the throat and he knew instinctively that there were no innards down there, just a yawning chasm, a void that crossed from this place that was too textured to be just in his mind, towards the real world.

_ If you truly want to make a mark in this world, if you really want your actions to count for something purposeful find these spies you were talking about, no matter the cost, find them and tell them this: be meaner, be more violent, start actually killing people. _

Overwhelmed as he was by the fleshy muscles in the back of her throat constricting his body he could just squeeze one word out of his lungs.

‘W-why?’

_ Indeed that is what they are going to ask, you cannot tell them that this came from us otherwise they will never listen, but we want the war to come back, we reached peace far too quickly by the work of cowardly diplomats, we are capable of crushing our enemies, we need war, but again, you go to them and just convince them to be more brutal, whatever it takes, you hear? Whatever it takes. _

‘B-but’

_ Your queen has spoken, are you going to do what I requested? _

‘Yes my q- Abraxas’

_ There is still hope for you i see, now wake up my citizen, wake up and move forward. _

She swallowed him and he fell back into reality.

***

He actually opened his eyes this time.

His head was throbbing to the point that every new beat felt like his scalp was going to burst open with the blood pressure. On top of that all he felt where his left hand used to be was a tattered skin bag filled with bone splinters and it hurt just as bad as it looked.

He was on the stone floor of a small cell with a pile of hay in one corner and a jar filled with milk in the other. A thick wooden door was ajar. He stood up pushing himself with the right hand and walked out of the cell.

He found himself in a narrow corridor, lit only by a single candle, set on a wooden table. There was yet another jar of milk but Horace surmised that this one belonged to the guard, who could be heard in the distance, walking back towards his station. The poor man had no idea what to do but decided to operate on instinct, he made sure to shut his door as slowly and quietly as possible so as to give the illusion that he had managed to escape by far more fantastical means. Then he stood in front of the candle, being lit from behind, making sure his face was hidden in shadows. If the queen had said so then he was going to believe his own tricks, tricks that came not from the goddess, she had said. Tricks that were repressed in this kingdom, which indicated that, on some level, they were feared. His exhaustion and the pain from his wounds made him gasp with every move, which inspired him to emphasize his ragged breath, making it sound far more primal, far more guttural. The guard stopped at the far corner of the corridor, with a clearly spooked expression on her face.

‘Who’s there?’ asked the woman, sporting a sword and armor, things that Horace just couldn’t fight against. Things that he didn’t have to fight against, if he was smart.

‘I am a magician’ he started walking towards the guard.

‘Stop right there!’

He was not someone to ever recognize mistakes or flaws but even he could admit this was incredibly stupid.

‘And a magician cannot be contained’

‘How did you get out!?’ Oh yes, there was panic, sweet, sweet panic.

‘A magician only takes what he wants’ he extended his arm, the broken one acting as if the pain wasn’t there for better effect ‘for example  _ i can take your weapon away _ ’

The sword’s blade turned invisible, in her shock the guard dropped it.

‘LOOK AT ME’ he screamed, partly for intimidation points, partly to hide the noise of the blade clanging on the ground ‘ _ i can take your eyes away’ _

A classic that never failed. The guard’s stare became lost in the distance, the back of her eye sockets could be seen. She started to moan, terrified, her hands grasping at the air. He easily walked past her.

_ ‘Now fall’ _

He kicked the back of her knees making her buckle to the ground.

He got close to her ear and whispered.

‘If you do not want me to take your life too, you will tell me how to get out of here unnoticed, bear in mind I am a force not to be reckoned with and the faster I leave, the less bodies i will leave behind’

‘Th-there is a passage near here for the guards to t-take a quick piss in the grass, f-fifth door to the left’

‘Very good’ he grabbed the sword from the ground. He had no idea how to use it but people he came across wouldn’t know this. He then returned the eyesight to the guard, just so she could see him standing tall with her weapon in hand ‘now you will stay here and say nothing to no one, understood?’

She nodded, absolutely mute, absolutely terrified. He walked out. As soon as he was out of her sight the guard started to scream for reinforcements. There was only so far that theatricality was going to take him, for the rest of the way he was going to have to trust his own two feet. He ran following the indications and crossed the fifth door to the left, on the other side he found a small piece of ground, pressed between the walls of the palace and a cliff that went for twenty meters into the sea. A full squad of guards were approaching behind him and he doubted he could trick all of them, but perhaps…

He walked up to the border of the cliff and turned around facing the small door through which he had walked out. The guards lumped together near the exit, unable to get all at the same time. Horace pointed the sword forwards so that whoever tried to cross the door would have to get impaled on the weapon. Him and the forces stood still.

‘Ladies’ he said, with the wind blowing his hair around his head ‘by word of your queen I must take my leave!’ he threw the sword upwards, making everyone follow it with their eyes, when they looked back down he was gone.

As he fell across the twenty meters of cliff he hoped the impact against the water wouldn't hurt too much.

It did.


	9. An unexpected transformation

‘What happened to Harold?’ asked one of the Stallions.

The captain didn’t take her eyes from the steam engine that was being carefully installed into the far side of the barn by the other workers. It was a delicate piece of business and she wanted to be sure the work was done properly. Once the machine had been securely bolted to the ground she turned her full body and said.

‘He has been relocated, Markus, it has been deemed suitable for him to occupy a different position within the farm’

‘No i know that, is just, you know, me and the boys hadn’t seen much of him these last few days and we’ve been worrying about him, that’s all’

Markus was big and muscular, like the other boys at the farm, with a straight nose and a prominent brow. His face looked too gregarious to be showing that much concern.

‘Don’t worry Markus, he is been taken good care of, you will all get to see him soon enough’

‘That is good to know boss’ the smile was back in place, everything was right in the world.

‘Now listen up boys!’ yelled the captain to all assembled there ‘there are a few doubts i want to clear off everybody's mind here today!’

The men around her formed a circle, despite their muscular complexions she was no smaller than any of them.

‘What you have just installed here is the new steam engine, sent here from the capitol, it is expected that it will be performing most of the hard work in this establishment within the next three years, nevertheless…!’ she had to raise her voice a bit since she noticed some of the bothered looks the stallions were giving her ‘I want to make perfectly clear this machine is not meant to replace any of you, it is here only to make your job easier! In the next few days you will be attending a series of classes meant to teach you how this new engine works and how to repair it, once we manage to get this thing fully operational then production within this farm will do nothing but increase and so will do our wages, so congratulations are in order to all of you, for improving our lives’

A modest round of applause came after these words.

‘And also, considering how much work you guys put into this thing today… you can take an extra hour for your lunch break’

Now proper cheers and hollering came from the crowd. The captain left them to celebrate with a smile on her face. Morale, that was something Loretta had been trying to tell her about all along. It had taken her a bit until she managed to put it in her own words. All she had to do was think of her own employees as her new squad. Little things like sharing an uniform, familiarizing herself with the names of these people, lending the occasional ear to confide in private matters, and above everything else, being down there, with the rest of them. That was all it took for good professional obedience. 

‘Administrator?’ said a woman with a long nose, holding a wad of papers, reaching the captain in the middle of a hallway, they both kept walking as they talked.

‘Yes, Stella?’

‘We have a situation with one of our employees, Jubelle Onastis’

‘Ah yes, Jubelle, remind me what was her production rate?’

‘Only about 100 cc on average’

‘Poor thing, i’m getting tired of sending people to the breeding grounds’

‘Well, she had a nervous breakdown this morning when her shift ended, she seems to be really upset about her production quota falling down’

‘Has she been taking the formula?’

‘It’s complicated, the records here say that we assigned it to her, yes but… well, you should let her explain it’

‘After, first i have to meet with Nataly Hannigan’

‘Should I take her to your office, madam?’

‘No, I think it would be best if I deal with this in front of everyone’

‘Very well, just remember that afterwards you have to sign the new contract with miss Derringider for the milk quotas owed to her cheese factory’

‘Yes, right, go back you your station officer’

‘Madam?’ said Stella confused.

The administrator stopped.

‘Did i called you officer?’

‘You did, administrator’

‘Sorry, old habit, go back to your office Stella’

‘Yes captain’

The armored woman kept walking and entered the production floor, where all her employees where standing on fours, donating their time and milk to the glorious Galatean kingdom. She called a handler with a snap of her fingers and pointed at a particular employee. She walked across the aisle, passing through both women and a few men being suctioned, chatting with each other, taking naps or playing cards. It brought her memories of her time in the trenches, whenever her soldiers would find even a second to wind down and relax. It was incredible how fast a person could go from tearing apart an enemies entrails to casually talking with their friends.

A series of almost fully healed scars on someone’s back caught her eye. It was the boy, Mikael. Much like everyone else, he seemed to be having a nice conversation with his co-workers as suckers tried to extract meager drops out of his nipples. How he had changed from his first days here. She took a particular pride on that.

More than once she had seen scared children having to face the horrors of killing or being killed in the battlefield. Every time a new recruit came to the front, legs shaking, hands barely capable of holding a spear, she couldn’t help but fear for their lives. Shock troops, fat to be discarded away. Conversely, every time she saw them coming back from their first battle, a new found confidence giving them strength, helping them stand a bit taller, her heart swelled with pride. They had done it, and she was the one that had helped them get through it.

She reached the specific employee she was looking for. She indicated the handler to disconnect her from her harvesting booth.

‘Stand up, Nataly Hannigan, today is a special day for you’

The woman, short and wide of hips, got up, wiping her breasts. She looked a bit concerned by this sudden visit from her superior. Everyone else in the barn was looking at them.

‘You have completed your five years of service to the farms of our kingdom and for that, in the name of our nation and in the name of our queens, I salute you’

Everyone started clapping. Nataly looked to the ground, with a modest smile.

‘I just want to let you know how proud we all are for your generous contribution, you have consistently broken records of production for the last three years in a row, your output has been unmatched, your dedication and loyalty, not only to the farm but your own coworkers has been exemplary and for this and much more you are being formally recognized by the kingdom, you will be suitably compensated for your work here and know that any recommendation you may need for future employment i will be more than happy to write it’

Another round of applause, Nataly gave a small bow.

‘Now, are there any words that you would like to share with your coworkers before you go back to your last shift?’

Everyone stood quietly. The worker slapped her face, trying to contain her laughter.

‘Nataly is mute, captain, she can’t talk’ clarified one of the workers on the booth besides lady Hannigan.

‘Oh, oh i apologize, i… I made a terrible mistake, i…’

Nataly started laughing uproariously, bending over with her cackles, soon everyone else in the barn was laughing alongside. Tha administrator had never in her life found herself in a situation like this and all she could do was nod with an embarrassed smile. Eventually she waved her hands to indicate everyone to calm down.

‘Alright, alright, I think we can all pretend that never happened, but now, on a serious and more personal note, I want to say thank you for your service, Nataly, I am honoured to be here in front of you and i’m sad that i couldn’t share more time working side by side’

Nataly stepped forward and gave her a hug which the captain was slow to respond to, and kissed her on the cheek. Then, after another curtsy, the worker went back into her booth.

‘Very well, get back to work, ladies’ 

The captain turned and went back to her office.

Once there she encountered a young girl, who had been clearly crying, sitting in front of her desk.

‘Excuse me, and you are?’ Asked the administrator.

The girl perked up, surprised by the captain’s arrival and quickly wiped her face.

‘Oh hello! I’m, I just wanted to talk to you, i am…’

‘Jubelle Onastis, right, i remember’ she was the girl with production issues Stella had been talking about ‘i heard you had… emotional problems?’

‘Well, is just....’ her voice sounded as if she was being choked ‘...see, I am loyal, cap, uh I mean, administrator’

‘You can call me captain, it’s fine’

‘Right, i have always been loyal to the queens and kingdom captain, i, i enrolled on the farms voluntarily, before I was of age, you know, I have always been eager to give of myself to the people’

‘How old are you?’

‘I’m 20’

‘And when did you join?’

‘When i was 16’

‘Usually it’s at the age of 17 that people are admitted into the farms’

‘I got a special permit due to my good grades in school’

‘I see, continue’

‘I don’t… I don't want to sound as if I'm being treasonous or like i want to disobey what is best for the queens, I have always done my duty and was proud of it but… I fear the queens may be asking too much of me here, captain’

‘By sending you to the breeding grounds?’ This is what she feared.

At first, measures such as whipping and impregnation had seemed to her a perfectly reasonable thing to do on farm workers. But the thing is that these people were no longer just farm workers to her, they were her employees. Not to mention that, in her personal opinion, 20 was just too young an age to be bearing children. Still, that was her job, that was the job of all of them. And just like she hadn’t complained when she was told to send children to the battlefront, she was not going to complain here.

‘I don’t know if i’m ready to bear that responsibility captain, is just… is too much, i’ve never even… I have never been a mother before… or even… “done it” I'm… I'm chaste’ New tears were starting to accumulate on her eyelids ‘but i don’t want to disobey either! I want to do my job! I don’t know why i stopped producing!’

‘Calm down, tell me, have you been taking the formula?’

‘I… sorta’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I was, well, i was envious, I admit it, my output had never been anything beyond average, i wanted to really make a difference with my contribution so these past few weeks I have been taking a special formula’

‘What do you mean a special formula?’

‘A homebrew mix, made by one of the new boys, he’s been sharing his special concoction, it was supposed to be similar in all ways! But it didn’t, it did the exact opposite!’

‘You have been taking an illegal, unapproved mixture, made by one of our employees, without even consulting with the administration first?’

Jubelle broke into tears at this, wailing a single, continuous high pitch note.

The administrator’s first instinct was to get angry at this. This girl, instead of taking responsibility seemed to be hiding behind her tears. She suppressed that sentiment, this was just a young girl, scared of an uncertain future, caught between faith and inner weakness. It was her job to strengthen her up.

‘Jubelle…’

‘I know!’ said the girl when she managed to gasp air out of her sob ‘i knew it was a bad idea from the very start! I didn’t think it would work at all but i was desperate! If i asked for the official thing then Lotta would have thought I was a failure, next thing I know the new boys are sharing this new mix that they claim is as good as the official formula and I decided to take it just to see but then it did nothing and i started to get scared and then i started to lose it all together, and then when they finally assigned me the official formula it just wouldn’t work either and, and i’m so sorry, please you have to believe me’ the last few sentences started to get faster and more tangled up, by the end it was barely understandable what she was trying to say at all.

‘It’s ok, it’s fine, if anything you can only be blamed of being overzealous, this is not and it has never been a competition Jubelle, the kingdom appreciates whatever contribution you make whether it is big or small’ She was gently rubbing her arm ‘but im going to need the name of the person who was distributing this illegal substance, please, so that this won’t happen again’

‘I… don’t know, it was one of the new boys, the ones sent to production, i… I think it was the one with a lot of hair, they call him daffodil’

_ Oh Mikael, what have you gotten yourself into this time?  _ He had admitted of tampering with his formula in the past. Making “experiments” so that he could understand this thing better. And now because of that, this girl was going to be sent to the breeding grounds and she had to deal with that mess. This was a thing that would have to handle, later. Now she had to manage this girl.

‘Ok Jubelle, what do you know of… the breeding grounds?’ she was starting to hate having to use that word with her employees.

‘Well…’ her face, already red by the effort of crying started to go almost burgundy ‘it’s… well, that is where you, um, you get… inseminated by the stallions… right?’

‘See, you’re probably operating under some very old misconceptions, it is true that when the farms were first instaurated the workers were… inseminated in the traditional way that women are inseminated, and that is still, on occasion, practiced, but the process has changed with the years, there are alternatives, it is a medical procedure now, you won’t have to actually engage on intercourse with anyone if you don’t want to’

She said that, knowing that no matter how much they protested at first, they all somehow ended up accepting the traditional way over the medical procedure.

‘I… I won't?’

‘Of course not, you thought we were raping people? By order of the queens? they love you Jubelle, they wouldn’t treat their citizens like that!’ no they wouldn’t. But manufactured consent was a thing and she knew this as well.

‘Oh…’ A very lost expression showed up on her face. She looked so confused trying to piece things together ‘but what of… um… the baby?’

‘Jubelle, who is raising you?’

‘My mothers, ma Louane and mama Gael’

‘Are you blood related to one of them?’

‘They… I never asked really, it didn’t seem important’

‘Of course it isn’t, I'm just trying to illustrate a point, you see how there are almost as many pairings between women as there are between men and women? But to have a baby you usually need a man and a woman, and even that sometimes is not enough, so where do the female couples get their babies from?’ she had to go slow here, she could see how the gears were slowly turning behind the girl’s face.

‘So then…’

‘The babies come from the farms, Jubelle, almost all of them in fact do, very little couples are having their own children now a days, I myself was born in the farms, and it’s very likely that you did too’

The girl’s jaw fell open.

‘But! No one ever told me about this!’ 

‘It’s considered best for children to not know about this so that they make a stronger connection with their parents’

Though usually it was told by the time they were teenagers. This particular girl being sheltered in such a fashion made a lot things clearer about her reaction.

‘Is just going to be five months of slight discomfort, through which the farm will provide you with utmost care, then one day of intensive work, with a suitable payment and then everything goes back to normal unless you wish to work in the breeding ground for a second cycle’ which workers usually did. 

It was said that pregnant women, specifically the ones in the breeding grounds, had a stronger connection with the goddess. A strange aura shrouded them and they went through the whole experience as if they were in a trance, after which they reported an incredible feeling of peace and contentment, and a strong desire to go through with it again. The captain had never done it herself, she distrusted of anything that could put her body under such extreme changes, regardless of mystical nirvana.

‘Huh… when put like that… it doesn’t sound that bad at all’

‘Of course it doesn’t! So, are you ready to take a new step in your contribution to the nation?’

The girl wiped her eyes one final time and nodded, silent. 

‘Very well, now go with Lotta, she is going to orientate you about the procedure and you will begin tomorrow, now chin up and have a good day soldier’ she winked while she said this and Jubelle laughed.

The girl left the office.

Once she was alone the captain took a deep breath and shook her whole body, while alternatively opening and closing her fists. She stretched her neck and then sighed again in a stammered breath. She was far too good at this and it bothered her.

She wasn’t like Lotta. She couldn’t summon a cheerful and motherly disposition as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if it was perfectly normal to forcibly impregnate girls who were barely out of their teens in a process that, as far as she knew, would brainwash them into wanting to do it again, over and over. She had probably spent far too much time fighting at the frontier, many customs appeared alien to her, many social rules looked foreign in her eyes.

She shook her head, she had to keep her mind centered. This was her job now. It was disloyal to go around thinking of how much time she had here before she could get back to her squad. There were problems to be dealt with and they were her responsibility. One such problem was Mikael.

What was she going to do with that boy? Her first response in the army would have been more lashes, but that was not the way things were done here. She had seen the way things were done here clear enough. She preferred the lashes.

Were they going to do with him what they had done with Harold Jukheim? More than likely. It all depended on her telling the truth to Loretta.

Assuming Loretta didn’t knew already.

***

Someone knocked on the door and Mikael hoped it was Harold. When he opened it though, he found himself in front of Helein, holding a small paper box.

‘Oh, hello Helein, come in, thanks for bringing it here’ Said the young man stepping out of the way, letting the tiny woman walk into his apartment. She set the box into the round table and said.

‘Why are you thanking me? this wasn’t a favor, you paid me to come with this box’

He stopped for a second, confused about how to respond to that. From what little he had managed to glimpse out of her personality he was pretty close to sure she was being serious, but he couldn’t be certain. She did have her bouts of dry humor here and there.

He decided to change the subject and grabbed the box.

‘So, would you like to stay for some tea, Helein?’

‘Not really, but i don’t really have anything better to do, so ok’ She sat down on a chair and crossed her legs, expectant. Mikael opened the box and saw the beautifully crafted purple brassiere that was inside. Instinctively he massaged his left boob, trying to gauge how well it would fit on him. What else could he use this thing with? He went through a list of his shirts, trying to picture which one matched the best.

‘Are you going to make that tea or just touch yourself in front of me?’ she didn’t sound bothered or sarcastic. That was an actual honest question.

‘Sorry, got caught up in the moment, one sec’ He left the box in his room and started to prepare the hot beverage.

‘I want my tea with some milk, please’

‘Um, we don’t really have milk, I don't take it very often’

‘And? Can’t you produce some?’ 

Mikael blushed at this.

‘N-not a lot really, that is, uh, that is becoming quite a problem really’

‘Well, however much you can produce is fine, i can’t stand tea by itself’

‘O-ok’

The man served the hot water on the cups and then unbuttoned his shirt, letting one of his breasts out through his regulatory brassiere. It jutted out, squeezed by the stretchy fabric. By this point it was as big as his fist and firm enough not to sag yet. He leaned a bit forwards and squeezed as much as he could. The liquid in the cup barely changed a couple of tones brighter.

‘H-here is it, i hope you like it’ he said, turning with a tray holding the two cups.

‘You can tuck your breast in, now’

‘R-right, sorry’ He squeezed his chest back into the bra and buttoned up his shirt.

Mikael added three spoonfuls of the formula to his tea and then they both drank in silence for a few seconds.

‘Tell me what you wanted the dye for, since im curious and you never explained’ said Helein, suddenly.

‘Oh, that? It was for a couple of experiments that I wanted to do, it’s actually quite fascinating, I discovered that the dye was the secret ingredient they add to the formula, but then i gave it to some other people and a lot of weird stuff started to happen’

‘What was it?’

‘Some kept producing like normal, others started to increase their output and others lost it altogether!’

‘Yes, that does seem quite irregular, why was that?’

‘I asked around, the key component over and over seems to have nothing to do with the actual ingredients of the formula and all to do with belief, some people were convinced that I was giving them some new, super secret, more advanced version of the formula, others believed they were taking some cheap bootleg that couldn’t possibly work, the more they believed the better their results, which explains what is happening with me’

‘Which is?’

‘At first I believed the formula was truly magical, so it had some effects on me, but then I started to test it and that introduced a level of skepticism which made its effects slow down considerably, now that i know it truly works but only as long as you truly believe it works I'm getting mixed results with myself, there is progress but is very slow, which is starting to worry me a bit’

‘So what then?’

‘I don’t know, what is really weird is that this was nowhere in the texts about magic i read, all they said was that magic was the power of the goddess being channeled through the individual but… does that mean she loses power if people don’t believe in her?’

‘It seems to me that is a system prone to vicious cycles, either you manage to find someone that believes in you so that gives you more power to convince more people or you start getting weaker which makes it so you lose believers, which makes you lose more power and so on’

‘You’re making it sound like the goddess is just a normal person who got lucky tricking people into worshipping her’

‘Well’ Helein shrugged ‘she started as the mother queen, she used to be mortal once upon a time, her three daughters are on their way to godhood as well, it would explain why most forms of magic that are unrelated to the milk cycle are so frowned upon, with exceptions such as the cruisers for example’

‘Ok, but how can I use this to make these produce more?’ he said, grabbing his chest ‘they’re sad, all the other boys are producing bucket loads by now and i can’t even fill a cup’

‘I seems easy to me, you just have to believe’

‘That is ridiculous, a person can’t just-’

Mikael interrupted himself when his front door burst open. Standing on the entrance, pale and haggard, was Harold. The boy stood up and ran to his friend to support him with his arms, since his steps looked unstable. Helein just looked at them with a curious gaze.

‘Harold, goddess, you’re finally here, it’s been days! What happened to you?’

Harold didn’t answer, there was something different about him. He looked thinner, emaciated. Shrunk. Whilst the man usually sported a slight stubble on his face, now he was perfectly shaven and a slight double chin erased somehow the lines of his jaw. When Mikael grabbed him he could see that he was lighter, he had lost a lot of his muscle tone, to the point they seemed replaced by small fat deposits.

‘Your friend looks bad, Mikael’ commented Helein

‘sit down, i’ll make you some tea, man’ said the young man to his roommate.

Harold shook his head at this and simply answered.

‘Not any more’

‘What? You don’t want tea?’

The boy tried to take a few steps towards the kitchen, intending to prepare something for his friend anyway but he was stopped by a hand from Harold.

‘Mikael, i… they did something to me’

‘They? The farm? Harold, why did they took you aside? When the captain called us?’

‘I’m… i’m not going to be a stallion anymore’ he pulled Mikael closer as his face contracted with a pained expression, tears welling in the crevices. 

‘They fired you?’

‘Perhaps I should go’ said Helein, standing up.

‘Oh, sure, good bye, Helein, and once again, thank you for the bra’ Said the boy, walking alongside the woman up to the door.

‘I already said you don’t have to thank me, goodbye’ she left the men alone.

When he turned around, he saw that Harold was stumbling his way up to his room. Mikael tried to follow him but before he could do anything his roommate shut the door on his face.

‘Harold!’ said Mikael, worried ‘open the door, tell me what is going on’

‘Go away, i don’t want to talk to you, I don't want to talk to anyone’ then, in a much more strangled tone of voice he said ‘oh mother goddess what are you doing to me?’

‘I’m not doing anything to you, i just want to help’

‘There is nothing you can do, man, just… leave me be, go to work, keep your head down’

It was, in fact, getting late for his shift. Mikael put on his work uniform right there, just to save time at the farm and to stay a bit longer here, trying to talk some sense into his friend.

‘Ok look, i have to go but as soon as I come back we need to talk, i know how you must feel man, i felt terrible when they told me I would have to work at the farm as a producer, I still can’t believe I'm growing breasts, sometimes i just think about what is going on with my life and I feel like throwing up because of how strange and disorienting everything is, but I am managing, I keep getting out of bed every day and I keep living my life and pushing forwards, and i know for a fact you have a lot more strength than I do, in many ways, and I want you to know that it doesn’t matter whether you were fired or what, i’m here to support you and help you in anyway you need, ok man?’

There was no answer from the other side of the door. He was going to have to ask awkward questions at the farm if he wanted to know what had happened with him.

‘Alright, see you later man, bye’

Mikael walked out the steps of his apartment, wearing his regulatory bra over his farm uniform for modesty’s sake. 

Once at the farm he stopped short of the shower doors. He should just go to his shift but there was something keeping him from doing so. He was deciding between acting as if nothing had happened and proceed with his day as usual or to go right up to Loretta and ask her what had happened with his friend. On the one hand, he was really worried about Harold, it was sad, not to mention disturbing, to see someone so tall and proud being reduced to such a sorry state. But on the other hand he would be having to deal with Loretta.

He stood on the spot for a while as other workers came through and greeted him. Perhaps Loretta would show up and solve the problem for him, but no such luck happened. He had to make a decision.

Finally he turned around and walked up to the administrative section of the building, all the way to Lotta’s office. He was about to knock on the door when he noticed that there were voices arguing inside the room and he couldn’t help but to listen.

‘...younger and younger every day! We are not letting our girls go to war before they are 20 and you are planning on sending people younger than that to-’ the husky voice that could belong to none other than the captain was interrupted by Loretta’s jaunty accent.

‘They are workers, cap, that is what they are for, if they don’t produce milk then we have to get them producing something else, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I can’t believe I'm hearing this from you when not two months ago you were telling me they were people, not machines!’

‘Don’t be sentimental, cap, have another drink’

‘No, i don’t think i will Loretta’

‘You have spent far too much time fighting outlanders, cap, you’re starting to sound like them’

‘I’m still loyal to the kingdom, you’re not going to get me off your back with charges of treason, also i am the administrator, I am the one who has final say on the operations of this farm’

‘Really? Because you still have to answer to the cuotas sent by the capital, coutas that, if you fail to meet, will delay your reunion with your dear squad all the longer, so what then?’

There was silence, long enough that Mikael considered knocking on the door.

‘Just meet the quota cap’ continued Loretta ‘i can see you are not made for this so just do your job, help things go along faster and then go back to your position with your squad and forget about us. We all fulfill our duty to maintain this kingdom stable, you keep at bay external forces and we keep in check our internal forces and neither side is pretty, you know this, don’t act like there is only pride and honor in war because i’m sure it has plenty of ulgy to it, and likewise here, if you have a better stomach for death and violence then just let the people who have a stomach for the farms do their job’

Again no response. 

It was a lucky thing that the door opened to the inside, since Mikael didn’t hear the captain’s steps coming closer. When she opened the door his ear was still pressed against it. He stumbled backwards, almost falling to the ground but caught at the last second by one of her muscular arms.

‘Mister bloomsbury, be more careful’ She said looking down at him with a look of concern ‘you should be at your shift’

‘I… there was something I wanted to ask to miss Loretta’

‘Of course you did’ the captain sighed.

‘Oh do come in my dear!’ said Loretta from within her office ‘what luck, for I wanted to talk to you as well’

The worker straightened up. Before he could cross the door he was able to hear the administrator whisper as she walked away “you should have just done your job kid”

Once he walked in he saw the fat woman, putting out a cigarette on an ashtray, next to her was a lady with a long nose and a wad of yellow papers bundled in her arms, taking notes. In his nervousness he started to play excessive attention to minutiae. He couldn't help noticing that her office had always looked excessively decorated. Cushions everywhere, carpets and curtains and candles within glass vases creating a warm and heavy atmosphere. There was a small altar dedicated to the goddess in one corner. A small statue of a pregnant woman and a plate filled with burning fenugreek.

‘Don’t close the door, i want to take a walk with you if you don’t mind’ Lotta said, getting up from her divan ‘Stella, honey, come with us if you will’

The other woman nodded. Mikael was trying to gauge when was the appropriate moment to say what he had in his mind. Somehow, in that moment, right in front of the woman that made him so uncomfortable, his concerns seemed trite. Lotta extended a flabby arm and surrounded his arms and neck, guiding him out of her office and into the hallway. The lady taking notes followed them a couple of steps behind.

‘Now before you start Mikael i wanted to tell you something’ said Loretta, leaning her head to rest it against the soft cushion that was his mane ‘i know’

‘Y-you do…?’

‘Yes, I know that you did it, and I imagine the guilt must be eating you on the inside, but there is no need for you to confess, my kid, mama lotta knows, mama lotta always knows’

‘Know what?’

‘Come on boy, don’t play silly games or you will get silly prizes’ she went on wagging a chastising finger in front of his face ‘i know well enough that you are the one who’s been distributing the illegal formula around the rest of the workers’

Oh, that thing. He hadn’t even stopped to consider that what he was doing could put him in trouble. Any impact he had on the workers he figured it would be minimal, nothing that going back to the real formula wouldn’t fix, right? But then at that very moment it dawned on him a terrifying possibility. Once someone got disillusioned with his version of the formula, then doubts could creep in about the real deal. Helein herself had told him about the vicious cycles that could form out of a moment of doubt. With an ever growing weight on his stomach he realized he might have made workers of the farm completely useless.

‘I also know that there was no ill intent in what you did, after all, you wanted to learn, you wanted to improve your work, is that right?’

Mikael, unable to talk out of sheer shame, nodded vigorously.

‘Right’ they were walking through corridors he had never been in. At one point they started to descend through stairs, he wasn’t even aware there was a basement in the farm ‘but still, good intentions or not, you have taken something from the farm, from our queens, and now you have to give back, my dear’

‘I promise I'll work even harder, Loretta! I will… i will produce more milk’ he really didn’t want to do that, but he felt a strong sense of responsibility towards his mistake ‘i will work longer if you need me, i can work longer hours or an extra year’

‘Excuse me’ said Stella, pushing past them and going ahead.

‘Shush, honey, shush’ now the hallway they were walking across was made of stone and illuminated by torches that stella was turning on ‘that is commendable, but there is another problem, is it not? You have been asking questions, inappropriate questions that i told you it was best to ignore and now you have learnt some uncomfortable truths, truths that make the formula not work as well as it should with you, am i wrong?’

Goddess, he had forgotten about that. The power of belief, and how he had lost it. He was in far bigger problems than he realized. By now his concerns about his friend were long gone.

‘How do you expect to pay back us if you can’t even produce now?’

‘I’m… i’m sorry… i… i screwed up, i didn’t mean to… i am a failure, i’m sorry’

‘But sorry doesn’t cut it, does it? Look at me’ She lifted his head by grabbing him from the chin, forcing him to confront her sweet, tiny eyes. There was so much compassion in that face, so much patience and love ‘is not enough to just say that you lament your mistakes, you have to make up for them, that is the way we move forward as people and as a nation, and i know just the way you can do this’

Yes, of course, there was only one way. A way he wasn’t too excited about, but he had endured lactation, he could endure this.

‘I’ll be sent to the breeding grounds, right? I’ll be working as a stallion?’

‘Yes…’

He took a deep breath. Whatever. He could deal. He had messed up and now he had no other choice but to grow up and be a responsible man.

‘...and no’

‘What?’

‘Yes, my dear, you will be sent to the breeding grounds… but it won’t be as a stallion’

No.

His first reaction was to say that this didn’t make any sense, that it was biologically impossible for him to do what they were intending to do with him. But he had already raised that objection once. And after two months here he was, with two breasts growing out of his chest.

A silent scream started to build inside his head, all the more panicked because he had already gone through this process once and so now it felt all the more crushingly inevitable. When before his lack of knowledge and experience had made him hold hope and fight back until the very last second, now he knew for a fact that fighting was absolutely pointless, except this time what he was going to go through was a thousand times worse. A million times more vital that it did not happen and yet it was going to happen and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Except run. Just run.

Last time, like an idiot, he had walked right up to the slaughterhouse by his own volition, impulsed by shame and apathy. Now he cared nothing about his reputation, about saving face, about whatever look his parents or his community might give him. Any price, any cost he was going to gladly pay to stop this madness. He was going to sleep in the forest if he had to, he was going to join the mountain kingdom. Teresa had been right all along and he had been an absolute moron believing that one could bargain with the disturbed forces of the Galatean kingdom.

He managed to run three steps before his ragdoll body was held in place by the massive weight of one of Loretta’s arms.

‘Now, see, that is precisely the answer you were not supposed to give, where is your contrition now, my dear?’

Kick and punch. He had to kick and punch and scratch and bite and do whatever it took to be free. The first fist he threw was caught by the fat woman and then a pair of guards came from further down the corridor to restrain him.

‘NO! NOOO! NOOOO!!!’ he screamed ‘HELP, HELP ME, SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!’

The only response he got was his own echoes. They dragged him across a big metal door and into a large circular chamber, with a circular hole on the roof, which allowed sunlight to enter in a single beam of light.

In the middle of the chamber there was a pool filled with a white, thick liquid, and all around it there were women with their eyes and ears closed, loudly breathing with an open mouth. The multiple exhalations combined were harmonizing into a single visceral chorus. There was another guard in one corner slowly beating on a giant drum.

‘Now, dear, this will go over a lot better if you calm down’ said Loretta, standing in front of him while the guards held his arms and covered his mouth ‘would you like to drink some milk from mama Lotta to settle your tummy?’

He tried to kick her away, she grabbed the leg by the ankle. He tried to kick again and she grabbed the other leg. She pulled away and managed to remove his highwaisted pants, leaving him with nothing underneath.

‘NO!’ he screamed again.

He was pushed forward by one of the guards while they still held his hands, which removed his elbow-length gloves. He fell on his knees, face sinking into lotta’s belly. She held him there hugging his head, almost suffocating him with her body.

‘Men are always so aggressive, are you not? How can that lead to a happy life, I ask myself, but it is lucky for you that it will no longer be a problem you have to worry about, young lady’

‘No…’ he didn’t even have the strength to scream anymore, he could barely hold himself from crying ‘i’m a… i’m not a woman’

‘No?’ she said, kneeling in front of him and gently sliding off his bra ‘then what are these? Would a man have these? Would a man produce milk like this?’

She squeezed one of his breasts and a drop of milk fell all the way down to his bellybutton.

‘That is not…’ he tried to object but was interrupted.

‘Were you ever really a man at all, Mikael? Always so soft, so quiet, did you even protest when we told you to come to work here for us? No, you came by your own volition’

‘I tried to escape!’

‘You were forced by your friend, you said it yourself, and then you didn’t try to escape again, you just kept coming back and kept drinking our formula, in fact not only that, you tried to experiment with it to make it all the more effective, isn’t this what you craved on some deeper level, dear?’

‘No! I hated being here!’

‘Really? Because these last few days you looked rather happy here, sitting on all fours, having your boobs sucked, massaging your breasts, talking with the other women here as an equal, you do what we do, you dress like we do, you look like we do, admit it girl, you’re one of us and you love it’

‘I…!’ that came more as an exhalation, synchronous with the other women in there breathing loudly. The outrage left no words and that pause was doom. For as much as one tried to hold on to memories of protesting and suffering and rejection experienced the first few days here, other more recent memories started to intrude. The memories of trying on the new bras, of looking at the reflection in the mirror and liking what was there.

‘Exactly’ she said, wiping a single tear of his cheek and cupping his face in her hands to help him stand up. Mikael complied ‘which is why you can be a mother too, just like all of us can’

An idea was still pushing in his mind, a bit of knowledge he wasn’t supposed to have.

‘This is all just a magic ritual, is it not?’ he said ‘is just you trying to convince me to believe in something that isn’t true, but is not going to work’ conviction was starting to creep into his voice ‘the formula doesn’t work on me because i don’t believe in it and this is no different, this is all just ritual and posturing but magic isn’t real’

‘That is what you believe dear’ she said, still holding his face as she conducted him down the steps that led to the pool of milk ‘but i know, and so do all the women here and every person in this farm and every single citizen in this kingdom that the goddess exists and her power to change the world is undeniable, we all agree that this is true and an entire country of people can’t be wrong, a single individual can’t be smarter than all of them, you’re not special Mikael, you don’t hold a secret power that can topple a religion, you’re just a young and confused little girl who hasn’t realized who she truly was all along’

They were completely submerged in the pool now, which was far deeper than Mikael thought at first, with the liquid reaching all the way up to the neck.

The beam of light somehow got stronger as well as the breathing of the loose circle around the pool. As the light intensified it reflected on the milk, making it shine, illuminating the entire room. Strange waves and shimmers formed on the walls and to the eyes of the poor employee the shimmers seemed to form faces.

‘And now  _ you will be one with the goddess _ ’ said Loretta.

_ ‘One with the goddess’ _ chanted everyone around.

_ ‘Your flesh will be as hers and ours’ _

_ ‘As hers and ours’ _

_ ‘Your loins will host life as ours do’ _

_ ‘As ours do’ _

_ ‘And you will give that life unto the world as we were all given’ _

_ ‘As we were all given’ _

Dear goddess, Mikael could feel it. The flesh could be felt rearranging, the skin reshaping, the bones stretching. This body beneath the milk was changing and the person that Mikael was changed with it. With every new sensation it became harder to deny, the only option was to believe what the senses were telling.

Loretta turned Mikael around so that she pressed against the back of the shifting body, grabbing both hands. She led one of the hands between her legs so that the fingers could feel the folds of skin tucked in there.

‘Feel it, girl, touch what is there…’ she then directed the other hand between the legs of the person she was talking to ‘...and see how we are the same’

This went on for three days.

***

Finally, Mikael came back to her apartment.

After the first few hours of the ritual her memories started to get confused. All she remembered was the feel of a titanic presence, descending into the room through the beam. So big it was the pressure of the entity arrived that it crushed on her body from every side, from every fold, from every opening, until it burst within, filling her on the inside. The goddess.

There were medical examinations, she recalled, measurements and medicines administered. She was given new clothes and new foods. She was told what to expect in the oncoming months and she retained none of it. Finally she was let go with the warning that there was no escaping now. She was one with the goddess and her condition wouldn’t allow her to run very far.

It was the middle of the night. She dragged her feet across the wooden floor of her home, too tired and defeated to turn on the candles. Her steps took her not to her room but to the closed door of Harold’s. She opened it, it had never been locked. There was Harold, lying on the bed, in fetal position.

Mikael got on the bed too, hugging her roomate from behind.

‘I couldn’t do anything to stop it’ the roommate said with a clear voice, they hadn’t been sleeping at all.

‘I know’ she answered.

‘After a while i… i couldn’t take it any more, i had to do deal with it or it would have broken me so… goddess, i let myself get lost in it, i… i enjoyed it’

‘Yes… me too’

‘What are we going to do daffodil? We can’t run away, they will just catch us again, there is no escape, i… i worked at the breeding grounds, i know what awaits down the line, the girls always started unsure or complaining but eventually they are all… overcome with something, is like they are not themselves anymore, after they… give birth they just want to do the whole thing again as fast as possible and that is how they spend the rest of their lives… we have these… things growing inside of us… what are we going to do?’

‘It’s ok Harold, it’s fine, we are still here and we are still ourselves, we are not going to run away…’

She had felt what Harold had described, being at the edge of the precipice, knowing that if a part of her didn't bend to the forces applied to her then she would have snapped. So she surrendered as much as she could. Her body, her identity, her life and she just kept one thing. A single splinter that didn’t turn with the rest. 

‘... we are going to stay right here and do everything they tell us to do, Harold, you hear? We are going to stay… and we are going to grow and we are going to climb and when the time comes we will replace Loretta, by any means necessary, we are going to stay and make this a better place’

And then came the voice, ancient, archaic, old enough that a human mouth should have not being able to endure the ages yet this one did for it had long ago stopped being human. A voice that came not from his brain or his ears, but from his heart, a motherly voice that shone as a sun beam inside a dark cavern.

_ Thou wilt fail, mine dottir _


	10. INTERLUDE I

**_A hundred years ago..._ **

‘It’s a miracle!’ exclaimed the midwife ‘may the gods be praised!’

‘It is three of them!’ one of the helping nurses added ‘as if one had not been gift enough, they are triplets to assure thine line of succession, mine Königin!’

‘Let me see them!  _ Mine dottirs,  _ they need me and i need them, give them to me!’

The woman was well on to her fifth decade, she certainly looked as much and even worse after her fifteenth hour of labour. Disheveled, sweaty and bloated by the ordeal, a vein on her nose had popped out of sheer effort and her lower body was covered in coagulated blood and shit. She was laying on her back atop a cotton bed on a stone room, the fire on the hearth was barely enough to keep the room warm and her shivers were proof enough of this. Still, as pitiful and weakened as her state was, she was still their Königin and her command imposed silence and respect.

The babies were given to her. She didn’t have enough breasts to feed all of them and even if she had it wouldn’t have made a difference.

‘Mine Königin, it would be best if you give them to the nurses to feed…’

‘They are my babies! I will feed them myself!’

‘Mine Königin’ said the midwife ‘i already explained to you that the special formula i made is not going to work until at least a few months have passed, you must have faith but above all, patience if you wish to…’

‘Silence witch, i heard enough of you these last nine months, you said it was impossible when we began a year ago and yet here we are, then you said it could be done but that it would kill me and yet here i am, you said it couldn't be more than one baby and yet here they are, i asked you for a miracle and yet it seems with all your whinging that i made the miracle myself’

It was hard to listen to the queen with the constant wails of the babies, who were not being fed yet.

‘This is an overwhelming moment for any woman, you are not altogether in control of your emotions, if you listen to me…’

‘I am more in control of myself than ever, i have all that i ever wished for and need no more from you, leave, i have already paid you witch’

‘My lady…’

‘I SAID LEAVE!’ she had to yell, both out of anger but also to be heard over her own babies ‘ _ JEDERMANN,  _ retire at once, leave me alone  _ mit meine dottirs _ !!! _ ’ _

Everyone obeyed. 

The cold was merciless. She made an effort to wrap the covers of the bed around herself and her babies but it was not enough. The stone walls were poor insulation. The outside wind was whistling through a thousand tiny cracks in the bricks. Her toes were starting to go blue.

Slowly, torturously, she left the children on the bed and stood up. She put the cover on the floor and then the children on the covers, all the while putting care on keeping the umbilical cords from tearing apart. Then she started to drag the cover by the fireplace. At no point did the babies stopped crying.

‘My dears, my darlings, my sweet little things, please stop crying, eure mutter will take care of you all...please, don’t be sad, i am here to love you and feed you, please, stop, just… stop crying! Please! Be quiet! Stop! I love you! I love you!!! I SAID STOP CRYING! STOP!!! STOP!!! STOP!!!’

It was hard to tell if the muscles in her hands were cramping due to the cold or due to the effort she had to make to restrain herself from slapping the noisy little things. She kept offering them her bosoms but they kept rejecting her since there was nothing there for them to drink. The only thing she could think of doing was to hug all three of them at the same time and press them against her chest in the hopes that perhaps that would be enough to shut them up. It made no difference.

Finally, desperate, she started to run towards the door. She had to stop midway for she almost tripped on the umbilical cord, which she grabbed and tore off with her hands. She then made it to the hallway and yelled for the nurses to come take them away. They came without a word and took the babies, their cries echoing in the distance. 

Once she was alone a man in a white wig and a puffy ensemble came bearing quill and parchment.

‘What are to be their names, meine Königin?’

‘Their names, they are to be called as mine mutter, Queen Aber’

‘The same name for all of them?’

‘No, idiot, give them different variations on it, do i have to do everything myself here? Abereins, Aberzwei and Aberdrei’

‘Which one is going to be which?’

‘They are babies! put whichever name you like to whichever one of them , it makes not a difference!’ she caressed her belly, as she had done in the past month, to feel the slowly growing mound there. It soothed her. But she removed her hand displeased when all she felt was loose skin. It was slowly starting to dawn on her that they were no longer a part of her body and that bothered her. They were _ out.  _ In another room, drinking someone else’s milk.

‘There is another command, my adlatere’

‘What is it, meine Königin?’

‘Have you made the list as i instructed?’

‘Ah, yes, all seventeen of your relatives are accounted for’

‘Good, collect the guards, the ones i paid personally and kill everyone on that list, starting with my husband then move on to the children and then the rest’

The adlatere dared not swallow spit. He dared not change his breath, nor deviate his gaze nor make any other such outward sign or reaction. He had been working for the royal family for quite some time. He had inherited his position from his father, who had died by a similar command from the previous Königin, queen Aber. A death his father had to command and execute himself, knowing what were the alternatives if he chose to disobey. Now, all the adlatere could do was to thank the gods that he was not on this list, knowing well that some day another list might include him. And this was completely acceptable after what he had witnessed today. There was no way in which the queen should have been able to get pregnant, much less to carry the pregnancy to term.

‘It will be done meine Königin’

She turned from the fire to look at her servant. She saw no fear or hesitation, only worship. As good as it should have always been. As well as it will be for everyone who gazed on her from now on. A miracle. She had made one. In a world where mages and street performers and priests toiled their entire lives to perform at least one before death, a single true miracle. Not a mere illusion or a magician’s trick. Something that would stick, something that could inspire a nation, something that would carry her into posterity. She still had a good thirty more years to build up on what had been accomplished. Maybe it was too late for immortality, but certainly not enough for ascension. And then it would be up to her daughters to reap the fruits of her labors. The sacrifices that a mother makes.

‘Anything else, meine Königin?’

‘Call me Mutter, that is what i am now, to mine dottirs and to all of my citizens’

‘Yes, meine Mutter’

He left her, standing alone and naked in front of the fire. She grabbed the bits of umbilical cord that were still dangling off her and pulled until she got the placenta out. She threw it into the fire.

‘This is my tribute to thee, the remaining gods of this world’  _ to which i will soon join  _ ‘i have made a miracle, just as everyone of you did in your time, but i will make more of this than you have, i won’t be forgotten, i will not fade away into the eons, my daughters will remember me, my country will remember me, and through them, my will will remain’

She could almost hear it, the whispers. Not of the gods but from the people. Everyone saw her do the impossible and now gossip was spreading amongst the doctors, among the nurses, midwives, the servants and the populus. Greatness was cloaking her. Worship, not the neutral obedience owed to a queen but true wide eyed worship owed to the supernatural. Wonders were said about her, and she believed them. She believed them because she had always known they were true.

She absentmindedly squeezed one of her breasts.

A stream of milk went out into the fire.

***

**Ninety years ago…**

The woman looked lower class. Her clothes were ragged and done in simple fabrics. Her hair was greasy and formed a mane all around her head. Through what little she had said the queen had been able to tell she lacked teeth. All in all a pretty unpleasant person to look at, but she was a citizen all the same and she was going to give her love and care as a good mother should.

‘And the priests were unable to help you then?’ 

‘I followed all of their advice Mutter, to no avail’ The woman, who was standing in front of the throne coughed violently.

The queen couldn’t help but notice the flick of dirt and perhaps mites that were falling to the floor. It was lucky that most of the room was still under construction and so the new carpet hadn’t been installed yet. She was filled with love and patience towards her subjects but they should be more mindful of cleanliness, after all, she was going to great lengths to keep the place tidy and beautiful. 

‘Then you did well to come to me’

There were thousands of women like her who came from all corners of the kingdom desperate for help. Most of them only needed a few simple lessons about biology and reproduction to get what they wanted, disguised as rites. A priest under her rule was no more than a physician who knew how to properly lie so that basic medical knowledge could be presented as her power being channeled. A dangerous proposition considering so much of her power rested on the loyalty of these few individuals, but fruitful in the long run. As soon as they taught their knowledge to the next generation of priests, disguised as religious orthodoxy instead of normal scientific data, then she would have true believers under her command.

Every miracle she performed was a gamble, it’s results subject to the fickle nature of worship. Even a single misstep could sow doubt amongst her flock and that would always be a net loss. She made sure to hedge her bets and take the true desperate cases, the one where even her priests were unable to do anything, on very limited occasions. Every time it worked and she managed to help a couple who had been altogether incapable of conceiving children, her power grew. But she never revealed this to the public until after the fact so that in case of failure the couple could be disappeared without anyone noticing.

_ Everyone gambles, even when they’re not aware of it.  _ She had certainly gambled, much like this woman had, ten years ago when she attempted to have children at her age. That gamble had paid off. If she had run that risk for the sake of having children then so could this woman. 

She stood up from the cushions on her throne and laid a hand of the woman’s belly. Her touch was light for she didn't feel comfortable being in contact with the woman’s dirty clothes.

‘Close your eyes, deep breaths’

As the skin beneath her hand stretched with every breath she felt something. Not much, a warmth, a depth, a core. A potential perhaps, that could blossom if there was faith.

‘Do you believe in me?’ she said, caressing the pauper’s back.

‘Yes’ said the woman exhaling deeply.

‘Yes what?’

‘Yes, meine mutter’

‘Do you know that i love you, Meine dottir?’

‘Yes, meine mutter…’ a slow inhalation, the queen gave a kiss on the woman’s forehead ‘...and i love you too, mother mine’

There it was. It was all she asked from her subjects, but it had to be freely given, by their own initiative, she couldn’t ask for it or it would be worthless.

‘Then come with me, don’t open your eyes’ the queen directed her subject to a nearby chamber where a strong smell of fenugreek and the slow beat of a drum came. Before they could cross the doors the matriarch noticed a small girl hiding behind the throne looking at her expectantly. The woman raised a finger telling her daughter to wait for her. The child nodded, with a serious expression on their face.

An hour later the ritual was completed, the queen left her subject alone to rest on the chamber while she walked out, wiping her hands with a towel. It had gotten a bit more intense than usual, her miracles were starting to take on a more intimate nature and that became a huge drain on her emotions. She still had a lot to do, she had to make sure the remodelations to the castle were advancing as scheduled and then she had to go to the dungeons to...

‘Mother’ said the child sitting on the throne.

She turned around, remembering.

‘Aberdrei! Come down from the throne! That is where mother sits’

‘Sorry’ the child said as they slid from the wooden chair filled with pillows. The kid was looking at the ground, pulling on their dress with clear apprehension. The mother turned around and kept walking towards the halls, forcing the child to follow her with rushed steps.

‘Mother is very busy right now, dear, go play with your sisters, please’

‘But mother, i mean, mutter, i wanted to ask you something!’

‘Well? Ask me’

‘Is just… i’ve been playing with other children, you know?’

‘You have…?’ this sounded like trouble.

‘Yes, and i’ve noticed something strange, the kids are different from my sisters and i’

‘Well of course they are, you are the daughter of the queen herself! And a miracle born to boot! Surely it would be weirder if you were not different, don’t you think dear?’

The hallways through which they were walking looked incomplete. Many stone walls had been torn down to then be replaced by brick and mortar, or paved over to make for more spacious rooms. There were masons here and there carrying drafts and maps with the new designs proposed by the queen. White paint was being spread all over the place.

‘Yes…’ the child said after thinking for a long while ‘but, is just… other kids don’t call each other sister all the time’

‘Of course they do!’

‘Yes but no, but i mean… kids who have what i have between the legs… that thing that my sisters don’t have, they call each other brother and their mothers call them sons… and they don’t dress like me or cut their hair like mine, why is that?’

The mother stopped at this. This hadn’t been altogether unpredicted but all the same she was disappointed. She had expected better from her own daughter. She kneeled in front of the child, her clawed hand reaching at their face and caressing their hair at the last second.

‘You are not, and will never be an ugly boy, you hear me, dear? You are my precious little girl, you came from me and that is why you will always be pretty and fair and you will grow up to be a beautiful woman, just like me, understood?’ the minor didn’t sound convinced at all by this.

‘Yes but…’

‘AND, if anyone ever says otherwise you come and let me know, alright? You come and tell me specifically their names so that mother can correct them, it is very rude if someone tells you that you are something you are not, so you come to me and let me know’

‘But…’ now her objection was a lot weaker.

‘Mother knows who you are, even better than you know yourself because mother made you, with her care and her love, mother knows what is best, darling, now go play with your sisters, that mother is busy’

She put her right cheek forward. The kid had no option but to kiss her and walk away looking dejected. She had to reinforce their education, they were starting to ask more and more inappropriate questions, perhaps double their breastfeeding sessions to strengthen their bond.

But there was so much to do, a woman couldn’t mold a kingdom at the same time she molded her breed. One or the other were bound to rebel sooner or later if she didn’t attend them properly and she preferred to attend her kingdom first. She could always find a later opportunity to set their daughters straight if they went astray but a revolting nation was a lot more dangerous.

Case in point was the man she was going to pay a visit now.

She went to the main hall where a giant pyramid was half way done and kept descending from there, walking by scaffolds, construction tools and men carrying bricks. Occasionally she would take a look at their work and command with corrections or encouragement. They were their sons as well after all, and ugly and brute as they might be, they were useful all the same.

Finally she reached a dungeon, deep in the bowels of the halfway dismantled castle. Inside was her adlatere, sawing off a man’s hands and taking his time in doing so. The man would have been screaming if his mouth hadn’t been sewn off tightly. And he would have been trashing if his hands hadn’t been trapped in a mantrap. As he stood, he was just making loud noises in the deeper parts of his throat that came out his nose, alongside snot and other disgusting fluids.

The saw reached the other side of the wrists and the adlatere stood up, torture tool on one hand, blood on the other.

‘It is done, mine Königin!’

‘Good, my son, now stand aside so i can talk to this liar’

The prisoner fell backwards, since his hands where no longer trapped. She walked up to him and put a foot on his chest.

‘I apologize that we didn’t let you speak, but we couldn’t have you going around lying anymore, could we? What is this about other gods and magic? The only one with magic in this kingdom is deine mutter, is it not?’

The poor man tried to roll on his side, his eyes shut, his mouth straining as much as it could into a grimace with the thread pulling against it.

‘I asked you a question, confess yourself as a liar, admit that there are no other gods, that i am the only blessed with magic in this land, a simple nod will suffice, dear’

He tried to drag himself by his elbows to a dark corner of the room so that he could be away from her, like a dog, like a cockroach. It was disgusting to her. She grabbed him by the hair.

‘Not so easy now, is it? To bamboozle? To con? You’re no longer trying to trick the idiotic masses that you are worthy of power and veneration, no, you’re trying to lie to your own mother queen! Come on! Where is it now? Your fabled abilities? Your magic?’ Spittle was flying around with every word. Her adlatere stood behind her, impassive.

Then, the prisoner turned around, nostrils flaring, eyes feverish. He looked directly into her face.

‘Fear is not love…’he strained to say, ripping the flesh from the thread that bound it ‘...you have no son or daughter that loves you in this kingdom’

She stood up, jumping back as if running away from a leper. The servant came forward, unsheathing his knife.

‘Don’t kill him!’ she yelled.

The adlatere stopped, confused.

‘I will not afford this filth such kindness, no, for he is right’ she forced herself to take a step forwards, closer to the wretch ‘drop that knife, go out and bring only the closest priests, and the medics and the relics, and the books and the sacred vases, today we shall perform a true miracle’

‘Meine Königin… are you sure you want spend your power on this…?’

‘Do not question me again, adlatere’

The man went away without asking another question. She took another step towards the bleeding man on the ground. What she was about to do repulsed even herself, but it had to be done because, as this low life criminal had said, fear was not love, and she needed love.

‘You could have just died a painful and ignoble death, citizen’ she said, kneeling down ‘you could have just suffered and that would have been the end of it, but now… now i have no other choice, i will have to go further, i shall devise all sorts of methods, push beyond any kind of boundaries and limits set in place by substance and sanity, i will twist whatever i have to twist, to make you and this country love their mother’

She started to undress.

‘I so swear’

***

**_Seventy years ago..._ **

Being a princess had its advantages, on occasion.

For example, the flock of servants orbiting around her, tending to her every need when at the moment she could hardly even move without suffering extreme exhaustion, not to mention dreadful agony, or the lustrous bed almost as tall as she was when standing, or maybe the lush room filled with paintings and fine furniture. Here was a young girl with a delightful crown of feathers hading fruit slices, there was a young man with a fancy domino mask playing an eccentric musical instrument which name she couldn't begin to pronounce. Despite the hardships she had been given to bear she firmly believed there was always solace to take refuge in. It went beyond finding silver linings, it was all about reframing the bad so that it was in fact perfectly harmonious with the world’s designs. One could never be mad at synchronicity, at the elegance of cause and effect.

She was trying hard to apply this philosophy to the ominous percussion of footsteps approaching down the hallway beyond her door. One could allow that repetitive sound to fuse with the music she was listening to, losing itself into the beat. See? Even in such a dreadful noise like that, one could encounter an opportunity for amusement.

Sadly the rhythm was interrupted by the auditory explosion of her doors brutally opening by a decorated foot of a man who was frankly starting to get too old for his job.

‘What have you done!?’ asked the deranged voice of a mad woman.

The mad woman in question erupted into the room. She didn’t look like she was eighty, not even close. She didn’t look like she was any age at all. She looked like a nostalgic recall of someone in their fifties, when memories faded a bit and details such as wrinkles and sagging skin had been blurred away. She looked uncanny.

‘Everyone out!’ the old woman yelled, dispersing the cohort of servants. The old man who had kicked the door open stood beside her, firm ‘what have you done you little shit?’

‘Honestly mother’ answered the princess from her bed, putting down a book she was enjoying quite a lot on the covers of her bed from which she couldn’t move ‘i could have asked the same question two months ago when you decided to perform your little parlor trick on us, but i didn’t, instead i decided to take matters into my own hands and deal with the problem myself, after all, i can’t very well expect my mother to solve my problems when i am already thirty, much less the problems she herself caused’

Princes Aberzwei crossed her arms as best as she could considering the things in her chest which made it difficult to do so.

‘You ungrateful little girl… you dare… you dare throw away my gift to you? You dare mutilate yourself, you dare murder an infant, you dare reject your sacred purpose in life… you… you…’

‘Now mother, do calm down’ grabbing a strawberry that had been left behind on her nightstand ‘let me address your accusations one by one, shall we? Mutilation? It was merely a medical procedure, you wouldn’t call mutilation to go to the dentist, though i have met a few which would certainly be capable of it, let me tell you…’

‘You think you are so funny…’

‘i wasn’t done mother, now, infanticide? For something to be murdered it had to first be alive mother, and it hadn’t even been born yet!’

‘You impudent whore! You are…!’

Whatever the old woman was intending to say, it couldn’t be heard since the princess kept talking as if there was no other sound in the room, not giving a single inch.

‘...So i believe that is moot as well, finally, this so called sacred purpose of yours, i will simply tell you this, i consider it to be unfit to the way in which i want to conduct my life and i shall grant you no place to exercise control over it, is it understood mother?’

The queen had given up on trying to talk over the rebellious woman and instead stood there quietly, forcing herself to swallow her disgust. She had dealt with rebels and criminals in the past, this was no different, it had only caught her off guard since it had come from the flesh of her flesh. Her face turned from red to creme gradually and then walked towards the bed.

‘You like to act as if you are wholly beyond my control, do you not?’ she began, thrusting her hand into the lower stomach of the woman in the bed, causing her to jump in pain ‘but who do you believe gave you your beauty, your youth, your… assets?’ her eyes fell on the ample bosom of the woman who was trying her hardest to disguise her suffering.

‘Mother...do be careful… the stitches are still quite fresh and we wouldn’t want for them to open, would we?’ her voice was choked, trying to push the screams down.

‘Would we not? Clearly you seem to have no regard for your descendants and believe yourself to be above me for it, who knows? Maybe i should be inspired by the brave way in which you butchered your own babies’

‘How curious...ugh...one would think you have been following such a philosophy from the moment we were born...ah!’

The queen slapped her.

‘I gave you nothing but love and care, i gave you warmth and patience, and every privilege conceivable, and you kept spitting them back into my face, yet I persisted in showing you kindness and when i try to give you the biggest blessing a woman could have you… you…’ her composure was lost again. She had to stand up unable to see her own daughter in the face.

‘What are you going to do next?’ continued the queen, unable to stop the reproaches from spilling out of her, no matter how whiny it made her look ‘start dressing like a pauper? Consort with pigs? Cut off your own breasts?’

‘Abraxas might do that any day now, especially after how you insist on making them grow no matter how much he exercises to reduce the fat’

‘Abraxas? What in damnation are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about my brother, you own son? Honestly you are growing quite senile with old age’

‘Oh you encourage that deranged delusion on top of this, this really is the last straw’ The old woman was pacing around the room, kicking on occasion the instrument that had been left on the ground.

‘Is no delusion, is just that he was born a boy much as you try and change it with your silly tricks, he prefers to be what he was born as and i prefer to respect that’

‘I have three beautiful, if on occasion disobedient, daughters, you may wish to take things from yourself but you won’t take that away from me’

‘Yes, your weird obsessions are regretfully not something that i will be managing to take from you any time soon’

The queen dropped herself on a giant divan, as if exhausted of dealing with her daughter. The adlatere walked closer to her.

‘I blame myself really’ she started saying.

‘I do too’

The mother gave her a nasty side eyed glance before continuing.

‘I dedicated far too much attention to the kingdom and not enough to raise you girls properly, I cultivated the love of the people and not the love of my own family… but that has to change’

The expression of equanimity in the princess was gone. The woman struggled to get out of the bed and in her own two feet.

‘See, you complain about the beautiful body that i gifted to you’ the mother kept going ‘but you don’t understand why i did so, after all, you needed the right conditions to care and feed your baby, but now i realized it was pointless to give you a child, after all you are the princess and future queen, you already have thousands of sons and daughters to feed…’

This time there were no replies filled with dry wit coming from the woman who was limping her way to the door. The adlatere stepped in her way and she didn’t have the strength to push him aside.

Her own mother came from behind and grabbed her breasts.

‘Just because they are not going to be feeding your child that doesn’t mean we can’t put these to good use, my daughter’

‘I would say that even for you that is sick but i have a scar in my belly that proves quite how sick you are, mother, still, i don’t believe you would really do that to us, sending us to those wretched farms you instaurated fifteen years ago? Putting us on the same level as your exploited populus? That doesn’t sound like your style’

‘Of course not, dear, you three are meant for grander things, as the daughters of the mother goddess, a higher station is owed to you’

‘Ah, as part of your religious ritual then? See, this is what im interested in, i’ve been thinking for a while about it, since i am the daughter of a goddess, what does that make me? And more importantly, what can i do with that?’ then Aberzwei looked at the adlatere in front of her in the eyes. Her boobs were still in the hands of the queen and she emphasized that slightly by puffing out her chest. She then put her hands between her thighs and bit her lower lip as she whispered  _ ‘do you like what you see, big boy?’  _

The servant turned bright read in an instant and covered his face, doubling over. His posture collapsed either because he was overwhelmed by shame and improper thoughts or because he was desperately trying to hide his sudden massive erection.

The princess then batted away the queen’s arms and started to run away through the corridors of the white palace. In her condition she didn’t make it very far and fell down, crashing against the marble floor. She heard the percussion of the high heels coming closer, once again.

‘Darling, please, now you’re just being childish, not to mention the crass use of your god given powers’

‘Oh there are plenty of things about me that are crass, mother you just don’t know about them yet’ She was trying to keep her disposition, even when lying on the floor, gasping for air due to the stitches of the invasive surgery she had gone through in the last few days.

‘You can keep them to yourself, now, once more because i love you, i will give you a choice, don’t believe my powers can’t mend what you did to yourself, will you use the blessings i gave you to feed your people or shall i try again to give you a blessing to raise?’

She weighed her options. Chances were she wouldn’t make it through yet another operation. Her mother would be exercising a much bigger control on the medics and doctors of the nation and the clandestine ones she would find would most likely butcher her. And to escape with a baby, inside the nation run by her mother, was utterly impossible. What galled her the most was not so much to find herself in this impossible situation, she could deal a bad hand with humor and irony as her ironclad defenses. But the fact that her sister and specially her brother where exactly in the same position was just too much.

‘You know what’ She said as she turned on her side, like she found the floor a comfortable place to lounge in ‘i think i will choose the religious path, considering the role models i had to grow with i don’t think i would make a very good mother, you know?’

‘I can’t say i’m not disappointed’ sighed the queen, bidding the adlatere, that was finally catching up to them, to raise the princess up ‘but perhaps this will be the compromise between the two of us, a chance to make amends and rebuild our relationship’

‘Oh you, always such a joker mother, next you will tell me that perhaps you are not a completely rancid cunt’ She winked her eye to the man supporting her weight and his knees buckled as he groaned, going red again. A stain was forming in his pants.

Well that was a power which could prove useful in the future. For example, it was giving her mother quite a grimace of disgust, that was always something.

Disgust, irony and insults. She could try and find the upside to any situation and in here, as long as she had those three things with her, she would be able to remain herself, she would be able to keep her sanity. 

_ Keep my sanity, unlike mother dear. _

She snickered at that last thought.

***

**_Fifty years ago…_ **

The three sisters saw the corpse of their mother and their only regret was that none of them were responsible for it. Old age had taken that satisfaction away from them. Yet, even though her death was owed to the normal failings to which we will all collapse some day, her face didn’t look a day older from the day she had given birth to them. She looked younger even.

They were standing atop the pyramid, with a gaggle of priests covering the body in flowers and oils. All around the altar, pouring beyond the confines of the circular chamber, going into the streets, almosts up to the outskirts of the city, a hundred thousand people were gathered to mourn the loss of their mother queen. None of them were crying harder than the poor adlatere, now well into his seventies, bent and crooked by age.

Amidst this plethora, it was hard for the now queens to let loose their true feelings on the matter.

‘Jolly good riddance, i say’ whispered Aberzwei, her humor as cold as always ‘i propose we make a tradition out of this, on this very day every year, we should visit her grave and relieve our bladders on top of it, perhaps even our colons if we’re feeling particularly inspired, what do you say, siblings?’

‘I say it would be mistaken to think that we are finally free and done’ commented Abraxas ‘knowing her, it would be just like her to have set up measures in place to spoil this day for us’

It wasn’t done. That sat far to heavily with the quietest of the three, Abereins. This was supposed to be it. All these years, the one thing that had kept her going, beyond the fact that if she let her will waver then mother would have taken control of it, was the knowledge that Mutter would eventually be gone, forever. It had to be done.

‘Are those tears, my dear eins? Please, i beg of you, i’m aware of you temperament being far more sensitive than Abraxas and me but do not cry, not on this day, not for her’

‘I’m not crying for her’ she muttered, far more quietly than her two siblings were whispering ‘i’m crying because of her, because of the possibility that, gone and everything, she could still hurt us’

‘Oh well, carry on then, this is just business as usual’

Abraxas, instead of adding to his sister's comments just leaned on her other sister and rubbed her shoulder, trying to comfort her. How could he do it? Where did he find the strength? On top of having to fight every second to retain his identity, despite the brutal transformations to which his body had been subjected, on top of taking the lead on keeping their mother’s machinations at bay, on top of trying to manage an entire country, he still found the inner mettle to offer her support and consolation, when she was the one that needed it the least.

‘We don’t know for sure’ started to say her brother ‘she could have left orders for the priests, she could have instaurated policies on the constitution, she could have bargained with the military forces to instaurate a military cue that takes us out of power as soon as she dies, she could have done all that and more, eins, but we are still here and we are not defenseless. We inherited from her more than just her title’

Their own faces showed not at all their age of fifty years. All three of them looked as if they had just entered their twenties in fact. But as everything coming from their mother this was both a blessing and a curse. With every day that passed they noticed their faces looking more and more similar, their movements were becoming more synchronized. They kept catching each other completing each other’s sentences. Circumstances seemed to conspire to make sure they were all besides each other at all times. When one had to go to the bathroom, the others had to go as well, when one felt sleepy, all three tended to collapse. They had tried to build separate rooms with separate beds but construction efforts kept getting delayed by accidents or lack of resources. They still shared the same bed that they had shared their entire lives. Because of this and other things, they had remained celibate for five decades.

But with all this, certain powers had come as well, powers which manifested through the strange obsessions her mother had in life, such as their bodies, or their lactation. They could influence minds and hearts if they shared these blessings with others, and no harm ever seemed to befall on them, regardless of risk of circumstance.

‘Whatever conditions she put in place we can dismantle them, we are the queens now…’ Started Abraxas

‘...And granted it may take years, but now we decide the course of this nation…’ continued Aberzwei’.

‘...together’ concluded Abereins.

The priests began to shuffle around them, subtly indicating them to position themselves facing the crowd. They knew what was coming now, the same thing they had committed to do at noon of every seventh day for the last twenty years lest their mother decided to put another baby inside of them. But now mother was dead. Now, if ever, was the time for them to finally refuse and break free. No threat could force them to stand on all fours and let these men squeeze any more milk from them.

But then their knees bent all the same. Because that is what they had been doing for twenty years. Their muscle memory had fallen into a rut, their first response when in front of a crowd had been hammered in. They couldn't break away from the role their mother carved for them their entire lives. How could they? The scene was set. They had their roles to play. They were at the funeral of their dear mother queen, in front of a crowd of thousands who believed them to be the devoted princesses, here to assure continuity and to gift them with their miracles, as they always had. 

The milk began to pour down the stairs as the sun reached its zenith in the sky. A beam of light fell heavily over all three of them from the circular window atop the dome her mother had constructed. The light blinded them. It covered their backs and they could almost feel its weight pushing down on them.

_ thou doth not believe it could be as easy as thus, did thee?,  _ said the loathed voice inside their hearts.

***

**_Thirty years ago…_ **

It wasn’t easy.

A country wouldn’t change no matter how much its leaders wanted to change it. Any attempt to do so would meet grueling, torturous resistance. What is more, any success would soon yield disastrous consequences. To change a nation implied interfering with every single strata of society, to take away the habits of a creature that was made of nothing but. 

One could try, for example, to shut down the farms. But then that would leave thousands unemployed, burdening the economy. An economy that would be unstable since the raw materials for basically all of it’s main industries would be gone. Which would mean revolt from every level of society, leading to revolution, the queens would get deposed and then some populist madman would take control of the country without anyone to hold him back.

So instead it could be attempted to weaken the religion of the country by way of taking power from the priests and stopping the official rituals held by the queens. But then people would keep worshipping in the privacy of their homes, more fervently than ever for being prosecuted. Any attempt to censor or repress religion would just worsen the problem more and more until you have another revolution in your hands.

To make matters worse, the government of the country was mired in a labyrinthic structure of accountability, handled by a small army of officials and priests whereupon any change introduced was carried by dragged feet across a road of paper trails. Road Blocked at every turn by requests of signatures in triplicate, improper form filling, misaligned stamps and lack of quorum in public queries. 

And above all that, the final slap in their faces was the fact that if ever they managed to do any kind of headway with any of the officials, bureaucrats, soldiers, priests or businessman, then the workers would get a visit in their dreams from the goddess herself telling them how unhappy she was with them and urging them to desist from whatever the queens had asked. And she could always interfere because she was with them always, seeing everything through their eyes, hearing everything through their ears.

Until one day they found a way around it, and all it cost them was the last thing they held sacred.

Seventy years had passed.

Abraxas, while still holding to the name, had long ago stopped calling himself a man. Lying on the bed, next to Abereins and Aberzwei, she started to scream.

She yelled, again and again and again, with no intention to create a specific sound, without modeling an “ahhh” or an “ohhh” just making noise. Pushing air through her vocal chords as violently as her muscles allowed, waking up her other two sisters. They saw her, every single tendon in her neck standing up, her face swollen red, her eyes wide open. At first they tried to calm her down, to ask her what was wrong, why was she so upset. But the more they attempted to inquire for her distress the more pointless it felt since she would not stop screaming and they knew exactly why it was. Because enough was enough. Because everyone had their breaking point. Because, as the year piled up, they couldn't help but notice they stayed the exact same. What their mother hadn’t accomplished in her last fifty years they seemed to be reaching in a lifetime. Immortality, they were not getting older, they were not going to die. They would remain the exact same, trapped in this kingdom for all eternity.

The other two sisters started to scream as well.

When there was no longer any strength in the muscles of their thorax they started to cry, hugging each other. Grabbing each other. Kissing each other.

Beyond any taboo or compunction or inhibiton, seventy years was just too long to be celibate, soon enough they began to make love. Caressing, finding comfort in the only warmth available to them. A soft kiss there, a shy tickle here. Goosebumps, blushing and heavy breaths. Sisters making each other happy for once in their life.

Then, and only then, was when they began to properly fuck.

They fucked each other, they penetrated each other, they sucked on each others flesh and swallowed whatever fluids came out. Because enough was enough. Because a part of them could believe that their twisted matriarch would look on them gently sharing as a good and healthy thing to promote. So they wouldn’t do that, they were going to debase themselves, to pervert and profanate every aspect of their bodies knowing, hoping that this would finally be too much, even for the fucked up sensibilities of the mother queen. That this would be the only slap to her divine face they could allow themselves to throw. That this would be sufficient to make her turn her gaze away from them for even a second.

Once they exhausted the possibilities of what they could do on the bed they went to the kitchen looking for tools. And then they went to the barns looking for companions. 

A couple of hours later, covered in hay, mud, broken eggs, a couple of knives, a funnel, butter, milk and plenty of semen, they went to sleep in each other’s arms.

When they opened their eyes they were more than giants.

Their bodies had expanded until they encompassed all space available in the universe, their skin pressing against each other, their shapes molded to accommodate each others silhouettes. They were puzzle pieces ensembled betwixt, no gaps, no cracks, just surface area flowing seamlessly into each other. And it was just the three of them in this reality.

_ Where are we? _

No mouth movement accompanied those sounds. Sounds which could only be transmitted across their bodies since there was no air to vibrate among them. With how similar their voices were by now, it was hard to tell who had been the one who talked.

_ I don't know where we are but let me say this one thing, i do believe we are… perhaps, alone? _

There was no weight on their shoulders, no beam of light illuminating them from above, the only voice inside their head was theirs and theirs alone.

_ Now this does present some possibilities _

_ Has this been caused by what we did? _

_ If so, it does seem like an inconvenient prelude to private communication, what do you think was the key action that unlocked this state? My bet is on the horse we used, the bitch never liked horses _

They shifted their positions, accommodating their unstable shapes. To witness this was like watching an optical illusion whereupon an assortment of objects suddenly turned into a face.

_ I don’t believe it was that, perhaps it was our shared intimacy yes, but that was never the vectors through which her power operated _

_ No, that was her accursed milk, and we certainly tasted each other’s for the first time tonight did we not? _

_ It was delectable i should add, my dear siblings, it… well, im not even going to attempt to joke about it, it was transcendental, everything i have heard about the act was true and more _

_ Yes… it was rather nice _

_ But what then? What difference does this make? If she is not here with us, wherever here is, then what good does it serve? She’ll be there when i wake up _

_ When we wake up _

_ What did i say? Did i said that wrong? _

_ I am talking to you, that is to say… you are talking to me _

_ Who am i even talking with? _

_ I am myself, i am not my mother, and whatever i say here she can’t know _

_ So that means i, and that is to say, we, can make any plans i wish in this place _

_ And she will never know about it _

_ And then we, and by that i mean i, will finally be free _

_ Forever _

And then they woke up.

In the following weeks they discovered all three of them were pregnant. 

They never found out if this was a consequence of their debauchery, their semi-god status bringing unforeseen consequences to their incestuous acts, or because their mother decided to punish them. Either way it was instantly decided that this time, they were going to keep them. This time they had a trick up their sleeve. Communication with anyone they wanted beyond the reach of the goddess.

To raise the babies as the next generation of royalty was out of the question, that would have just perpetuated the cycle and turn the descendants into the new slave princesses. Instead what they did was to bring a midwife into their dreams, easy task that simply involved sharing their milk with them, and arranged for the midwife to take the children away from the capitol, to be raised at the frontier, where the reach of the goddess was weaker. Not even the queens themselves were allowed to know of their location so that the goddess couldn't guess at it either.

When the day to give birth came, a charade was presented. Since the goddess could see and hear everything they perceived, but no their thoughts, it was a matter of knocking themselves out right when they were to give birth, as agreed in dream space, and act as if the babies had been born dead when they woke up, by way of a convincing acting by the midwife in question.

These three babies were separated, their last gamble. Someone inheriting the powers of the goddess without any of her values or culture, and the mothers couldn't ever act, sigh, whisper or give any outward indication that they were out there.

One, born from abraxas, grew to be a normal citizen like any other, believing in her nation and religion, they ended up joining the army. The second one, born from Aberzwei, was lost, beyond the frontier, to the outlands, never to know what happened to them ever again.

The third one, son of Abereins, was the one who showed actual promise, and so he was contacted by the queens, about...

***

**_ten years ago…_ **

They were looking at that man, all the way from the top of their pyramid, for the first time in their lives and they tried their best to find anything familiar in him, anything at all.

Poika Yksi, He oozed charisma, as well as obscene amounts of smoke from his pipe. An affectation that should have come off as unbearably pretentious since he was no older than twenty and yet he made it work. Patched up clothing, curly hair that surely once was blonde but it had burned off with time, and twinkling eyes. He seemed like the kind of person that bought himself a night in someone else’s bed with nothing but a wink and a smile.

Was there anything in that face that called to them? Perhaps in the way his nose bent, or the specific shape of the cheekbones? He looked very much like himself and noone else. That, perhaps, was a good thing.

It was late in the evening, an hour when the sun had already set. Illuminated by torches and candle light, chances were they looked imposing to him. The three priests looking at him from the base of the pyramid with openly hostile faces didn’t help.

‘So, you’re probably wondering why i brought you here, my queens’ he said, smiling.

‘You did no such thing…’ said one queen, confused, concerned.

‘...we brought you here…’ said another, bemused, deadpan.

‘...and you answer to us’ said the third, firm, assured.

‘Oh but you see, i am not one to mince my words, ladies, were not my actions which drove you to call me, can you say it was not exactly as intended by i?’

One of them smirked.

‘You may not mince your words but do be cautious all the same about what you presuppose’

‘Of course, my ladies’

‘Now as for why we brought you here, it is because…’

‘It is because of blasphemy committed against the crown!’ interrupted one of the priests, a young man with hair already white ‘to claim yourself able of performing miracles as if you were greater than the goddess herself!’

‘Oh but i never claimed such thing! In fact quite the opposite!’

‘We have many witnesses and testimonials asserting that you have-!’

‘Let him explain himself, my priest’ interrupted this time Abraxas.

‘My queens’ said the priest bowing his head ‘if i cut him off it is merely to stop him from insulting you to your faces’

‘Do not insult us again by deeming us as fragile, priest’ said Abraxas.

‘After all we are the ones who are supposed to be coddling here, are we not?’ said Aberzwei.

‘To not let us fight our own battles is to imply we are weak’ mumbled Abereins as a final point.

It was always like this, pushing and pulling, a delicate never-ending balancing act between keeping the priests happy whilst not letting them run the kingdom on their own.

‘As i was saying…’ continued Poika ‘...my gifts are merely an extension of the goddess herself, for she has blessed me with but a fraction of her power’

‘And could you do a demonstration of these so called powers?’

‘Certainly’

He took his pipe off his mouth, letting the ash fall to the floor.

‘Mind you actions!’ screamed one of the priests outraged ‘how dare you throw your dirt in the temple of the…!’

Poika threw his pipe at the man, who covered his face with his arms, cowering. The pipe never got to struck him. Before it could make contact the pipe flew back to the man, who caught it in his hand.

‘Impressive’ said Abraxas.

‘And what is the limit for how big and far away you can move things?’

‘I have managed to work my way up to a human being from a hundred meters away, but i’m sure i can go further’

Now that brought possibilities to mind. Only twenty years old and his power was already this strong, with their blessing and sponsorship the sky was the limit. They had been discussing ideas about the routes of milk distribution in their dreams for days. One thing they found out was that the milk lost its power the more time was spent from the tit to the mouth. A plan for centralized distribution of the national product would be a great excuse to come up with incredibly circuitous routes that would make the milk weaker, though it would probably take an entire generation before the effects could be noticed.

That had been the way they had managed to make progress, with subterfuge. It was hard to gauge how much consciousness their mother had kept after her ascension, at times it felt like she reacted more like a force of nature, following very strict and basic motivators. To maximize mothers, worship and milk distribution. Whatever her mother had turned into was not the most intelligent of agents, only extremely powerful and capable of acting against anything that was an outward threat to her values. So anything that was presented as something that furthered her goals, even though in the long run had opposite consequences, would be able to be enacted.

‘We have a business proposal, Mr Yksi, but first… would you like a glass of milk?’

***

**_Five years ago…_ **

_ Dear sisters i have one more proposition to make _

They were back in the dream world, made out nothing but their bodies, a habit they had formed through the years and which had been taking over more and more of their time.

_ How long are we spending every day in this state now? _

As the years passed they couldn't help but find solace in these dreams, away from the kingdom, away from their mother, away from everyone. A place where they could just be by themselves, in absolute contentment. 

_ The more time we spend here, the more it is proven that this kingdom can rule itself without our help, we are slowly extricating ourselves from the system and there may come a day when we wake up and we are no longer required, that we are redundant, if a day does not come first where we just don’t wake up at all _

Certainly their plans had been set in motion, the cruiser industry set up years ago by Poika Yksi was booming and, with it, the new routes traced by them would weaken the grip of the goddess on the population. On top of that they were starting to introduce automated machinery as part of the farms, which would make it so that less and less people needed to work there. Every step, every degree of separation they could get between the people and the ritual of the farms was a victory for them.

_ What we have set up long ago will take even longer to bear fruit and immortality notwithstanding im wondering if we will be there to harvest our sow when the time is ripe, perhaps we should advance our timetables. _

There were ideas that had been thrown around. For example, once the population started to show their signs of disenfranchisement from the country’s religion then they would start pushing their mother’s goals all the more fervently. To demand an increase in the production of milk and babies, to add the male population to the farms as both producers and breeders. To put a strain on the people so that they would start actually resenting their leaders, and, by association, their goddess. It was a delicate matter, since if it was done too soon the citizens were liable to simply accept the changes, that is how brainwashed they were. But on the other hand if they waited too long…

_ An unexpected consequence of the cruisers is that now our mother realized she can export our milk to other countries, and they will buy it, don’t you realize what this means? Her grip will expand, you know how these processes work. It will become a feedback loop, the more land she conquers the more powers she will have to conquer even more land, if we do nothing she will be capable of taking over the world in a few decades! _

The distressed voice was impossible to localize in the dream. After all these years their bodies had melded into each other, factions blended away. They had long ago stopped looking human and instead resembled formless blobs of skin and meat, constantly flowing into each other as if they were bubbles inside honey. Neither could know who was talking, if indeed they were not simply talking all at the same time.

_ We must preempt this somehow. We can't let other nations accept this poison. We must show ourselves to them for what we truly are. We must… _

_ We must declare war. _

This was a hard idea to accept. They had been willing for over ninety years to make every sacrifice conceivable in order to free their country from their mother, any personal sacrifice, that is. But to sacrifice others, their fellow countrymen, the country itself even, to throw away lives under false pretense, in the hopes that they would lose and a foreign force would finally liberate them from their tyrant, that was heartless. But if it was what was needed? But if it was the only way as far as they could see?

_ Would we be any better than her? Subjecting our people to suffering in the name of what we understand to be the greater good? She never acted for the greater good, we know that, but she was mad and she possibly believed it herself. Well, we have been suffering torture fore ninety years, is there not a chance that we may have finally lost it as well? Can we trust our judgement at all? _

And all this belabored the most important question of all. For they knew what happened to kings and queens when they lost a war they had declared unjustly. Execution. There was a distinct possibility that this was all an elaborate ploy from them to take their own lives. But to verbalize this, even in this most private of spaces, was unthinkable.

_ Yet how can we not do this, whatever outcome it may have, to say that we are not insane is madness, when was the last time we bit a fruit? Or that we tasted meat? Only dairy, lactose, that has been our only diet for fifty years now, we fuck each other every night because now that is the only thing close to happyness that we can experience, we sleep twelve hours a day because that is the only way we can have privacy, we have forgotten the faces that we were born with, the voices with which we talked, we have even fogotten if we were ever anything but what we are right now. _

It was enough. Now not even screaming their throats raw could express their emotions, it was enough and it was too much and it was beyond what any human being could withstand and one way or another it had to be over. 

They had no other choice. They had to go further, they would devise all sorts of methods, push beyond any kind of boundaries and limits set in place by substance and sanity, they were going to twist whatever they had to twist, to make themselves and this country free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so guys, it seems i have burned through my backlog! sadly from now on updates will be weekly. I say this just so you dont spend next wednesday fruitlessly refreshing this site, hopefully i will be seeing you all in a week.
> 
> while you wait you could take the chance this interlude affords to share with me so far what you think of the story in the comments, a little feedback goes a long way.
> 
> thank you so much for reading


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